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Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

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Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#211

Post by GFischer »

Daishiman wrote: post #57
jbm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy Fukushiman land. Raise your kids there. Feed them local produce. To thy own self be true. I am not defending coal or solar or whatever. I am referring to the closed attitude of the nuclear industry. There is a huge problem with nuclear defenders in Japan who don't eat their own dogfood. You'd think they would be happy to do so since the reward is huge (improved confidence) and the risk is only 20 or more years do…

If you're living relatively close to a coal power plant you're already worse off. Statistically, you should be far more afraid of living next to one. I'm not saying it's something that should be dismissed, but I do think that we just have to take into account that anything that handles humongous amounts of energy in a concentrated space is dangerous, but nuclear energy is less so than most alternatives.

Or an oil refinery, people in the area close to the La Teja oil refinery here in Uruguay have significantly increased cases of mercury poisoning and child underdevelopment.

And here in Uruguay, the current way to supplement the already exhausted hydroelectric power is burning oil - I'm advocating a nuclear power plant to get us out of our current energy crisis (and I would have it in my backyard if needed)

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#212

Post by russss »

jbert wrote: post #112
marze wrote: post #33

When I see a story like this, it reminds me that the events in Japan represent the biggest PR challenge the nuclear industry has faced in many years. Fifty billion dollars of nuclear reactor US taxpayer-backed loan guarantees hang in the balance. The industry has been working for the past few decades to rehabilitate the image of nuclear power after Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, and now they have to contend with vi…

Out if interest, the way I'd try and design a fail-safe solution would be to have meltdown trigger a shutdown. Picture a bunch of large, heat-proof (ceramic?) test-tubes, with their bases apart but their openings together. Put that underneath the core - then if it melts and drops down, small pieces of it flow in different directions - until you've got a sub-critical amount in each one - so the fission reaction stops.…

The issue at Fukushima isn't criticality, though. All the reactors were safely shut down seconds after the earthquake hit, and no new fission has occurred since then.

The problem is that even a shut-down reactor core generates significant heat due to the decay of fission by-products, and that's what caused the problems.

That said, there are other reactor designs which are more inherently safe.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#213

Post by wazoox »

lispm wrote: post #116

I'm from Germany and I'm supporting our move to 100% renewable electricity production by 2050 or earlier. It will be interesting to see what the US does. Let's say coal and gas are much more dangerous than nuclear and nuclear is the way to go. Let's also say renewables is not a way to go, because many people die from erecting wind mills, bio mass plants and solar panels. Chemicals for solar panel production are dirty…

> France also has a shrinking population, where the US is still growing - last I looked.

Remark: France has a growing population, and one of the highest birth rate in Europe.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#214

Post by grammaton »

It seems to me like Nuclear is the safest form of energy in the short term - very few people die per gigawatt hour, if you will. But in the long term I'm still not entirely convinced - we've only had nuclear power for a few decades, but the waste is going to stick around for a lot longer than that, so calling it "safe" on the basis of a very small amount of data relative to the whole time we'll be affected by them seems...premature.

That said, we could solve a lot of the problems - and even get rid of existing waste - by switching to newer reactor designs that are, among other things, much safer.

Fat chance of that happening, at least in this country. We're just to firmly wed to what is essentially a generation of outdated reactor designs.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#215

Post by jerf »

route66 wrote: post #136
jerf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

I remember Erik Naggum calling out this "citation requested" calls as being passive aggressive, On HN I see them mostly coming along when the view of the other is not accepted. The radiation levels and the finding of Pu in the ground, leaking out radioactive water and the like have already been reported to death. This call for sources, at the same time demanding they be sensible and have to use sensible definitions i…

"On HN I see them mostly coming along when the view of the other is not accepted."

No shit?

"The radiation levels and the finding of Pu in the ground, leaking out radioactive water and the like have already been reported to death."

None of which lead to "20 (presumably square) km" being rendered anything remotely resembling uninhabited. I still haven't heard anything that would even permanently condemn the land the reactor is on. The mere presence of plutonium in the water isn't that interesting.

It may help for context to realize that my house is a RADIOACTIVE DEATHTRAP. I have RADIOACTIVE GASSES seeping into my basement that were ABOVE THE LEGAL LIMIT. No, I am not kidding. I have a radon remediation system running all the time. See that bright red blotch in southern Michigan in [1]? That's where I live and have lived all my life. If we freaked out in linear proportion to people who are freaking out about the stuff happening in Japan, we wouldn't be talking about how Detroit is depopulating due to the bad economy, we'd be talking about how Detroit is a radioactive uninhabitable wasteland.

Except it isn't.

In fact, I bought this house knowing it was a RADIOACTIVE DEATHTRAP. It didn't significantly reduce the value, even, I didn't even get a deal. The radon remediation system has a big radioactivity symbol on it, so I seriously live in a house with a for-serious radioactivity symbol in it. I find myself wondering how many people flipping out do too.

I suppose arguably I can't really afford to just flip out and call it the holy and proper response or I'd have to, I don't know, burn my house down or something.

"By contrasting "overzealous safety organizations" with "sensible risk based analysis" you put excatly no argument forward but already indicate what you would do with any such source."

Bullshit. Flat out bullshit. I will happily accept analysis that shows that some exposure would trip the rather conservative limits of, say, the US OSHA or EPA. What I have seen is that it remains orders of magnitude below those limits for almost everybody who isn't right on top of the plant, like, on the property. It sounds like you're the one trying to hide irrational beliefs from the light of sanity, not me.

[1]: http://www.epa.gov/radon/pdfs/zonemapcolor.pdf

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#216

Post by asharp »

lispm wrote: post #207
asharp wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting a rebuttal with the word "wrong" seems rather counter-productive. If you have a reasonable point that disproves mine, then anybody reading it would notice this and as such the "wrong" is not required. If on the other hand, your point does not in fact counteract mine, then making such a strong statement seems rather foolish. To begin: * Uranite (U3O8) is a major ore of uranium https://secure.wikimedia.org/wik…

You have now found out a little bit about the energy density of Uranium. It has little to do with how dangerous mining is and what the consequences are (exposure to Radon, contamination of drinking water, ...). Fact is, here in Germany we have been mining for coal for decades. It has a lot of negative impacts on nature. It is still going on. But it is slowly phased out against political opposition. Uranium mining OTO…

Can you show that the rate of fatality for uranium mining is more then 13630 times the rate of fatality of coal mining per kilogram (or cubic meter)? (Including secondary effects of both)

At the end of the day, that specifically is what we are trying to find out.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#217

Post by Lost_BiomedE »

lispm wrote: post #104
michaelchisari wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with Fukushima was that it was an outdated design that should have been decommissioned. Nobody who points out the relative safety of nuclear power wants us to build more Mark I BWR's. My interest is in Travelling Wave Reactors and Thorium Molten Salt Reactors. But the problem is, when people freak out about Fukushima, they don't say "Hey! Mark I BWR's aren't safe! We should shut down those designs!" They…

The problem is that people also compare this with outdated designs for coal plants. There are much cleaner modern coal plants with filters. Still coal is dirty and dangerous. In the nuclear industry you have new designs. But this does not solve the basic problems: * mining of Uranium is dirty * you need to transport dangerous material * nuclear weapons can be produced * reprocessing is extremely dirty * storage is un…

Look a bit more into the different alternative nuclear designs. We have enough stored 'waste' to use it as fuel for a long time, not requiring much if any mining. Nuclear weapons can not be produced from these reactors. They use the material so storage is not an issue. They can use passive cooling which does not depend on computers that could be infected.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#218

Post by asharp »

lispm wrote: post #205
Turing_Machine wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is enough nuclear fuel to last for billions of years. Billions. With a b. See: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html

See the sun at the sky. There is a fusion process going on. We just need to harvest it.

Similarly if you look underground you will find a mantle hot with radioactivity.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#219

Post by jarek »

_urga wrote: post #187
jbert wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out if interest, the way I'd try and design a fail-safe solution would be to have meltdown trigger a shutdown. Picture a bunch of large, heat-proof (ceramic?) test-tubes, with their bases apart but their openings together. Put that underneath the core - then if it melts and drops down, small pieces of it flow in different directions - until you've got a sub-critical amount in each one - so the fission reaction stops.…

The way I'd try and design a fail-safe solution would be not to design it in the first place. No one is forcing us to build these things. But government contracts are lucrative and contractors exist.

No one is forcing you. A lot of people just think refrigeration is awfully nice to have.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#220

Post by asharp »

adrianN wrote: post #139
asharp wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you suggest? Keeping in mind that basically all renewable sources sans hydroelectric can't be used to provide baseload power and hydroelectric power both has very few potential locations (most of which are in use) and has the nasty failure condition of washing away a good portion of the countryside.

Solar thermal with molten salt heat storage might be a viable baseload alternative.

It still has the same problem that you can't "turn them up" to cope with higher demand over longish periods, which makes dealing with them tricky. They are a good step though.
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