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Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

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Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#231

Post by dragonwriter »

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #230
DoctorOetker wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A terrorist is not likely to select a solar manufacturing plant as a target. What chemicals would you be talking about? silane gas is explosive, but burns to water and silicon dioxide... > These kinds of scenarios are borderline absurd So absurd, the US government gave the hijackers of Southern Airways Flight 49 $2 million ..., about as absurd as an earthquake and a tsunami flooding some emergency generators... Good…

> A terrorist is not likely to select a solar manufacturing plant as a target. A terrorist is not likely to select a nuclear power plant's dry storage either. Again, a terrorist stands to kill far more people crashing a plane into a building than either dry cask storage or solar panel manufacturing planet. > What chemicals would you be talking about? silane gas is explosive, but burns to water and silicon dioxide Cra…

> Again, a terrorist stands to kill far more people crashing a plane into a building than either dry cask storage or solar panel manufacturing planet.

For terrorists, body count isn't the goal it's one means to an ends indicated by the label.

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#232

Post by 7952 »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #171
rgbrenner wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post conveniently ignores solar/wind + batteries, which is even cheaper than coal.

Are you really suggesting those have zero externalities not priced in?

The externalities are orders of magnitude less complex to deal with.

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#233

Post by yongjik »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #223
Manfredo_1 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who cares about the surface storage temperature? a dirty bomb can deny access to surrounding areas for prolonged times. A dirty bomb is a device specifically designed to disperse radioactive material. Spent nuclear fuels is actually much less harmful than the isotopes that could be used in a dirty bomb, and it's potential for dispersal is much less in a ground collision than in an atmospheric detonation. Nuclear wa…

A terrorist is not likely to select a solar manufacturing plant as a target. What chemicals would you be talking about? silane gas is explosive, but burns to water and silicon dioxide... > These kinds of scenarios are borderline absurd So absurd, the US government gave the hijackers of Southern Airways Flight 49 $2 million ..., about as absurd as an earthquake and a tsunami flooding some emergency generators... Good…

This thread is a quintessential anti-nuclear circular argument. Sorry for bad paraphrasing, but basically:

A: Nuclear is dangerous because bad things happen if a jumbo jet crashes onto it.

B: Is there anything that doesn't cause bad things when a jumbo jet crashes onto it?

A: Irrelevant, these things aren't as dangerous as nuclear.

I get that there are issues with nuclear. This isn't one.

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#234

Post by reitzensteinm »

manfredo wrote: post #204
rgbrenner wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post conveniently ignores solar/wind + batteries, which is even cheaper than coal.

Where are you getting this claim? Natural gas costs somewhere between $40 and $70 per MWh [1]. Storage costs for batteries range from $100/KWh (very optimistic) to $300/KWh [2]. But that's per kilowatt hours. That's $100,000 per MWh to $300,000 per MWh. Solar and wind's dispatchability remains its key weakness. Storage at anywhere near the required amounts remains a fantasy. That's why Germany and California are stil…

You can use batteries more than once! If you cycle them once per day for ten years to store solar power until night, your numbers given mean they add $30-100 per MWh to the cost of that stored power (but not daytime use).

Not cheap, but in no way a "fantasy". Certainly not in a world with sane carbon pricing.

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#235

Post by AngryData »

Balgair wrote: post #158
Consultant32452 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern nuclear power plants use waste from previous generation nuclear power plants as their fuel.

Doesn't that then make it easier to get to the bomb?

The limit to producing nukes now is mostly energy requirements. Nuclear chemistry is not a secret and anybody can go to school for it. The limitation is the massive energy requirements to actually purify the materials to such high grades. The Manhattan project used 10% of the US total electrical generation capacity.

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#236

Post by choeger »

manfredo wrote: post #204
rgbrenner wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post conveniently ignores solar/wind + batteries, which is even cheaper than coal.

Where are you getting this claim? Natural gas costs somewhere between $40 and $70 per MWh [1]. Storage costs for batteries range from $100/KWh (very optimistic) to $300/KWh [2]. But that's per kilowatt hours. That's $100,000 per MWh to $300,000 per MWh. Solar and wind's dispatchability remains its key weakness. Storage at anywhere near the required amounts remains a fantasy. That's why Germany and California are stil…

You are mixing up the price of capacity vs. the price of generating the electric energy. A battery for 100/kwh can be used several 100 to 1000s of cycles.

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#237

Post by nobodyandproud »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #209
nobodyandproud wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you quantify the life and healthcost of the mining, “recycling”, and disposal of the PV and the battery? PV and batteries are expected to last only three decades or a decade+, respectively. Unlike a centralized power source, decentralized power has all of the downsides that we have today with consumer garbage. Disposal is left to the consumer, which means it’s just going into landfills. Ethics is a strawman.

As long as the mining activity was by informed consent, i.e. no slavery explicit nor implicit, any life and healthcost of mining, recycling and disposal is incurred with informed consent...

The effects of mining and disposal don’t disappear after one generation, and solar and wind is not a solution that works for all climates and regions.

The multi-generational ethical problems you’ve constructed apply to oil; gas; solar; windmills; nuclear.

To put it another way: There is no free lunch, but some sources like gas and oil must be reduced. Of that there is no doubt.

The unethical choice is to outright disregard other proven solutions because of unfounded fear and doubt, and leave an irreversible disaster for the next generation.

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#238

Post by C1sc0cat »

BurningFrog wrote: post #145
ComputerGuru wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is only so relatively expensive because it’s the only fuel source that’s forced to pay up for all the externalities up front (and I’m not saying that is a bad thing to require). A nuclear plant can’t be built if the money to make it safe (as per some specification), insure against all health complications while it’s in operation, decommission it, clean up the site, securely dump all spent fuel, and return the…

> securely dump all spent fuel Reminder that Coal and oil energy gets to dump their spent fuel in the atmosphere, and thereby our lungs! The uneven treatment of different energy sources really is fantastic!

And that's not counting accidents in coalmines and tragedy's like Aberfan - where a soil tip collapsed onto a school and killed 115 Kids and 28 Adults.

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#239

Post by Manfredo_1 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #231
Manfredo_1 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A terrorist is not likely to select a solar manufacturing plant as a target. A terrorist is not likely to select a nuclear power plant's dry storage either. Again, a terrorist stands to kill far more people crashing a plane into a building than either dry cask storage or solar panel manufacturing planet. > What chemicals would you be talking about? silane gas is explosive, but burns to water and silicon dioxide Cra…

> Again, a terrorist stands to kill far more people crashing a plane into a building than either dry cask storage or solar panel manufacturing planet. For terrorists, body count isn't the goal it's one means to an ends indicated by the label.

Sure, a terrorist's goal is to create terror. But a higher body count is by far the most reliable way to generate more terror. Sure, a few people killed in a particularly gruesome way might create more terror than a numerically larger event. But only by a moderate factor. I highly doubt 10 people killed by a plane crashing into a dry storage site would leave a greater impression than a hundred killed by crashing into an occupied building. And a 10:1 ratio is probably generous towards the number killed by the attack on the waste storage. For the most part, these concrete cylinders sit still with few, if any, people around them: https://blogs-images.forbes.com/jamesconca/files/2018/03/ENW...

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#240

Post by BjoernKW »

Lutzb wrote: post #224
ComputerGuru wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is only so relatively expensive because it’s the only fuel source that’s forced to pay up for all the externalities up front (and I’m not saying that is a bad thing to require). A nuclear plant can’t be built if the money to make it safe (as per some specification), insure against all health complications while it’s in operation, decommission it, clean up the site, securely dump all spent fuel, and return the…

In Germany the concept of "Ewigkeitskosten" ist factored in for coal and nuclear.

The concept exists but it’s not exactly transparent how those costs translate into actual energy prices because coal mining has been heavily subsidised.

There are estimates, however, saying that those costs will exceed the overall benefits in the next few years, i.e. in the end it‘ll have been a negative-sum game.

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