Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity • Hacker News Board

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#221

Post by kgarten » Sun, Apr 03, 2011, 3:12 PM UTC

asharp wrote: post #194

kgarten wrote: post #168

Downvote me if you want, yet I'm really sad about Hacker News. This is the 4th or 5th pro-nuclear propaganda article up-voted in a couple of weeks. Personally, I'm always sceptical about superlatives. Yes right ... the safest. Especially, for our children and their children. For everybody who's a proponent of nuclear: If it is so save, why can't you get one insurance company to insure a plant against accidents? And w…

Sure. Global warming can kill people for tens of thousands of years to come. Newer processes produce no fission products with a half life > 100y. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Thorium_fuel_... Proper reprocessing can dramatically reduce the amount of waste produced, and the toxicity therein. Just generally, but why would you expect insuring a nuclear plant to be any more painful then insuring a pesti…

How's solar and wind power contributing to global warming? Even new, very expensive coal plants are not contributing to global warming :) See: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Schwarze_Pump...

Thorium sounds great, can you tell me how many of the current power plants the new ones planed in the US. will use Thorium? Could not find this information. Is there some plan for proper reprocessing?

I can just talk for Germany, as I'm unfamiliar with the situation in the US or elsewhere. In G. nuclear power plants are not insured, because no insurance company takes the risk. Pesticide plants however are insured and have to pay a lot for their potential risk. So in G. the nuclear power industry gets the profits whereas the risks are shouldered by the citizens (and their ancestors).

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#222

Post by motters » Sun, Apr 03, 2011, 3:21 PM UTC

Certainly the amount of over-confidence, downplaying and sheer denial over the Fukushima incident has been quite astonishing to witness. Repeatedly, pundits of all kinds lined up to insist that the plant was in a safe condition and that everything was under control and that there was no possibility of contamination spreading beyond the plant perimeter. It may take some time before we know the full extent of the environmental damage. If I was living in the north or Japan I'd be extremely concerned about the health effects over the next few years and decades.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#223

Post by jimfl » Sun, Apr 03, 2011, 3:25 PM UTC

BasDirks wrote: post #92

You guys know about the problem of nuclear waste right? You've read plenty about it right? Because this whole "it hasn't caused an apocalypse yet" argument in favor of nuclear power is just a tiny bit short-sighted. If you make your software like you reason about nuclear power, send me a note naming your products so I know what to stay away from.

The half life of most software is 18 months or less (the number of users decreases by half), so you can be way sloppier in it's construction.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#224

Post by Tichy » Sun, Apr 03, 2011, 3:28 PM UTC

asharp wrote: post #191

Tichy wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet nature all around us seems to thrive on solar power alone, with zero toxic waste byproduct. I don't think pollution in production is a must, either. You don't have to dump your garbage in the river.

First off no, nature doesn't thrive off solar power alone. At the very least hydrothermal vents provide energy to most aquatic life past the thermocline. I'd also like to point out that the sun produces more radioactivity then anything likely to be found on earth, and fusion as a whole accounts for all the heavy metals ever created in the universe. (just some food for thought).

I know about the hydrothermal vents, but I don't think nature needs them.

The sun example was discussed to death in another thread. Sorry, I think it is just a silly comparison.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#225

Post by TillE » Sun, Apr 03, 2011, 3:36 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #208

TillE wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 100% renewable electricity production by 2050 or earlier Do you know anywhere I could read about the specific plans for this? I assume lots more wind turbines are a big part of it. I buy green power from Vattenfall, and I know at the moment most of it is hydroelectric imported from Norway.

If you can read German you find it here: http://www.uba.de/uba-info-medien-e/3997.html and here: http://www.umweltdaten.de/publikationen/fpdf-l/3997.pdf

Perfect! I live in Germany, but I'm not a citizen, so my political engagement is usually somewhat limited.

I'll take a closer look later, but the short answer seems to be "everything". Mostly solar everywhere and wind in the countryside and offshore, but also hydro, geothermal, and biomass.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#226

Post by bricestacey » Sun, Apr 03, 2011, 3:39 PM UTC

gnosis wrote: post #114

jedsmith wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nuke power is the safest power we've come up with (among power sources that actually have produced a significant fraction of the power we use) This is crucial, and is why blanket statements like "nuclear power is safe" are dangerous. There is an absolutely essential qualifier required on the end of any assertion about nuclear safety, and I'm glad to see that you put it in parentheses here. Nuclear power is the best…

"Scientific American, a most conservative scientific publication, in a cover story on October 26, 2009 -- unveiled its 'A Plan for a Sustainable Future.' It declared in its 'Plan to Power 100 Percent of the Planet with Renewables" that, 'wind, water and solar technologies can provide 100 percent of the world's energy, eliminating all fossil fuels.' The British magazine New Scientist, in a special October 11-17, 2009,…

The description of Scientific American is misleading. Sure, it's technically a "scientific publication," but it's actually a magazine aimed at the layman that you can find at checkout counters and airports -- not a peer-reviewed scholarly journal that one would typically be associated with that term.

To put it in a better perspective, using Scientific American as a source for making decisions on the future of energy would be like using reprinted Associated Press articles to make decisions on US involvement in Libya.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#227

Post by gaspard » Sun, Apr 03, 2011, 3:46 PM UTC

billmcneale wrote: post #80

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…

Number of casualties from nuclear plant accidents: a few thousands. Number of casualties from coal mining accidents this past century [2]: 100,000. That's accidents in coal mines alone, not even counting lung diseases and similar. The fact that it takes a 9.0 tsunami after forty years of complete absence of nuclear accidents to bring this to the front page should be indication enough that nuclear is not just safer th…

You guys keep amazing me. Do you forget that nuclear plants produce tons of waste that has to be kept far away from any life form for thousands of years ? Do you know any written language or sign or whatever that is 10'000 years old and which human people can understand and use cautiously ?

Nuclear waste is going to be the worst legacy we give to our children and grandchildren. They will hate us for this.

And, even if the waste is going to give trouble (and to cost) people in the future, these same people handling our radioactive waste won't have any fuel left:

Toxic waste is forever, fuel is for 50 years. Doesn't that look dumb to you ?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Fuel_composit...

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#228

Post by jarek » Sun, Apr 03, 2011, 4:10 PM UTC

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…

> I'm from Germany and I'm supporting our move to 100% renewable electricity production by 2050 or earlier.

Do people in Norway whose natural environment you're altering on a grand scale by buying their renewable hydropower feel the same? Will they feel the same in 2050?

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#229

Post by pdonis » Sun, Apr 03, 2011, 4:12 PM UTC

gaspard wrote: post #227

billmcneale wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Number of casualties from nuclear plant accidents: a few thousands. Number of casualties from coal mining accidents this past century [2]: 100,000. That's accidents in coal mines alone, not even counting lung diseases and similar. The fact that it takes a 9.0 tsunami after forty years of complete absence of nuclear accidents to bring this to the front page should be indication enough that nuclear is not just safer th…

You guys keep amazing me. Do you forget that nuclear plants produce tons of waste that has to be kept far away from any life form for thousands of years ? Do you know any written language or sign or whatever that is 10'000 years old and which human people can understand and use cautiously ? Nuclear waste is going to be the worst legacy we give to our children and grandchildren. They will hate us for this. And, even i…

Follow the link in the Wikipedia page to the article on reprocessing. It solves both of the issues you raise: it greatly extends the time the fuel lasts, and it greatly shortens the time that the remaining waste is dangerous. The only reason this was even an issue in the US (it isn't in other nuclear-using countries) is that the Carter administration banned reprocessing because of misplaced concerns about proliferation. In March 1999 the Clinton administration finally reversed that position (probably because it was obvious by then that reprocessing didn't increase proliferation risk--every other nuclear-using country has reprocessed its fuel from the beginning and there have been no incidents). So we can just take all the stuff that was supposed to be stored in Yucca Mountain for 10,000 years and reprocess it instead. Problem solved.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#230

Post by burgerbrain » Sun, Apr 03, 2011, 4:17 PM UTC

varjag wrote: post #167

burgerbrain wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bringing up coal when people start bitching about nuclear is no different from bringing up car accidents when people start bitching about flying. Danger is relative, and relative to the rest of the power industry, nuclear is absurdly safe .

6% of nuclear power plants had radiation-releasing incidents INES 4 or bigger. Chernobyl and Fukushima alone comprise about 2% of NPPs worldwide. There must be some creative statistics at works behind those safety figures.

  deaths/TerraWatt.

Such dastardly statistical trickery!