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Why has nuclear power been a flop? (2021)

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Re: Why has nuclear power been a flop? (2021)

#21

Post by littlecranky67 »

cedws wrote: post #14

Something I haven’t seen discussed in the nuclear debate is that NPPs become a high risk target in times of war. Look at what’s happened in Ukraine regarding the Zaporizhzhia power plant. The IAEA has been crapping itself the entire time while both Ukraine and Russia have haphazardly been shooting and bombing around it. If Russia were forced out of their position, they could adopt a scorched earth policy and destroy…

Fully agreed. When the Ukraine war broke out, in Germany we had discussions how we could no longer rely on cheap russian gas and there we politicians actively demanding NPP to be reactivated. At the same time our government decided to spent 100 bilion € for the military and defense. This is surreal, when experts explain how "safe" NPPS are, the safety assumptions never asume a war going on around that NPP. If you factor this in all NPP would immetiately fall into the very unsafe category and all other energy sources would gain precedence.

Re: Why has nuclear power been a flop? (2021)

#23

Post by Bluestein »

cedws wrote: post #14

Something I haven’t seen discussed in the nuclear debate is that NPPs become a high risk target in times of war. Look at what’s happened in Ukraine regarding the Zaporizhzhia power plant. The IAEA has been crapping itself the entire time while both Ukraine and Russia have haphazardly been shooting and bombing around it. If Russia were forced out of their position, they could adopt a scorched earth policy and destroy…

> NPPs become a high risk target in times of war.

In certain geographic areas, it could be said that nuclear energy presupposes stable peace.-

Re: Why has nuclear power been a flop? (2021)

#24

Post by bborud »

A lot of what is said about nuclear power fails to drill down to the bare essentials: how do you de-risk building nuclear power and how do you get the cost down. A lot of smug mumbo-jumbo written by industry insiders who have their heads too far up their own behinds tends to take attention away from the fact that, so far, we've gone about it in ways that don't make sense. You don't actually need to know anything about nuclear power to understand why the approach of building large nuclear power plants doesn't work. Some basic knowledge of financing and the statistical chances of "black swan events" when you stretch out projects in time suffices.

Or in short: if you don't understand the goals you must navigate towards, it doesn't matter how much of the technical implementation you know.

"How Big Things Get Done" by Flyvbjerg and Gardner zooms out a bit (well, a lot) and draws a relatively clear picture of what approximate shape the solution space has for nuclear. Yes, the book gives a high level perspective. And yes, transforming the industry so it can fit within the constraints outlined in the book will be expensive and time-consuming. But it is worthy of serious consideration.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61327449-how-big-things-...

I tend to point out that the country where I live is uniquely suited to design and build reactors precisely because we don't have a nuclear industry. (We had a research reactor, but that's an entirely different matter and you would NOT want to involve the cowboys who ran that)

Re: Why has nuclear power been a flop? (2021)

#25

Post by medstrom »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #10

I don't really think he understands why the safety paradigm is the way it is. The problem is fear. Fear generated by individual incidents that have terrible local harmful effects. And the (perhaps inaccurate) perception that plants may still have issues. Plus the fairly unsolved waste storage problem. Fukushima, 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl were existential for the nuclear industry. Like it or lump it, they made nucle…

LessWrong emphasises taking human factors into account all the time. Maybe you're thinking of RationalWiki or some such site?

Re: Why has nuclear power been a flop? (2021)

#27

Post by Bluestein »

ianis-h wrote: post #20

Nuclear Power is a complex thing, as any complex thing it require attention and commitment. Therefore it is more prone to destablization by a small number of individuals. Russia have been quietly lobbying against nuclear in the EU for a long time (looking at you german Green Party).

> Russia have been quietly lobbying against nuclear in the EU for a long time

And, given this, they might even have a perverse incentive to destroy nuclear facilities, if only as yet another form of pro-oil, pro-gas propaganda.-

Re: Why has nuclear power been a flop? (2021)

#28

Post by cedws »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #21
cedws wrote: post #14

Something I haven’t seen discussed in the nuclear debate is that NPPs become a high risk target in times of war. Look at what’s happened in Ukraine regarding the Zaporizhzhia power plant. The IAEA has been crapping itself the entire time while both Ukraine and Russia have haphazardly been shooting and bombing around it. If Russia were forced out of their position, they could adopt a scorched earth policy and destroy…

Fully agreed. When the Ukraine war broke out, in Germany we had discussions how we could no longer rely on cheap russian gas and there we politicians actively demanding NPP to be reactivated. At the same time our government decided to spent 100 bilion € for the military and defense. This is surreal, when experts explain how "safe" NPPS are, the safety assumptions never asume a war going on around that NPP. If you fac…

Much easier to target one NPP than thousands of windmills and solar panels distributed throughout the country too.

Re: Why has nuclear power been a flop? (2021)

#29

Post by bborud »

wcrossbow wrote: post #5
uniqueuid wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it's stupid not to take the game-changer of solar and wind (and batteries) into account. Even though I believe that nuclear no longer has a role in energy (fuel sources, disposal, concentration of risk into few small units), the statement is still correct and it has another dimension: There is a conflict between poverty, climate change, gravity of climate change harms and the speed at which we can reduce…

A guardian or a gordian knot [0]? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordian_Knot

The story of the gordian knot wasn't really about the problem. It was about the solution. So alluding to it when you talk about nuclear is apt, but not for the reasons people seem to think.

Re: Why has nuclear power been a flop? (2021)

#30

Post by TheRoque »

uniqueuid wrote: post #4
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #3

> There is a great conflict between two of the most pressing problems of our time: poverty and climate change. This wasn't true in 2021 and has been getting less true over time. Not one mention of Solar or Wind in the whole article.

I agree that it's stupid not to take the game-changer of solar and wind (and batteries) into account. Even though I believe that nuclear no longer has a role in energy (fuel sources, disposal, concentration of risk into few small units), the statement is still correct and it has another dimension: There is a conflict between poverty, climate change, gravity of climate change harms and the speed at which we can reduce…

Is it really a game changer though ? AFAIK countries that made the shift to solar and wind can't still store they energy and have to rely on fossil still to power they country (e.g. Germany). On top of that, if the whole world made the shift to solar, wind and batteries, I assume the scarcity of some materials will become an issue. According to this [1] Lithium for example is expected to have a shortage by 2025. There are also challenges like usable surface, and making all the intermittent, non-controllable energy work together. I mean, I am open to the idea of solar/wind, but "game changer"... Doesn't seem so easy

[1]: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/electric-vehicles-wor...

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