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Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

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Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#241

Post by smegger001 »

cesarb wrote: post #198
atonse wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know though, Chernobyl and Fukushima had completely different reasons and don't really clump together apart from "both were meltdowns" Chernobyl was entirely a product of design compromises due to cost savings, combined by a totalitarian system suppressing the known impact of those design decisions. It was also a much older design. Fukushima also seemed like a design mistake (I remember reading it that th…

> As far as I know though, Chernobyl and Fukushima had completely different reasons and don't really clump together apart from "both were meltdowns" A glass-half-empty view of that would be that there isn't a single reason which could be fixed to avoid all future issues. Fukushima AFAIK didn't have the design and operational mistakes which led to the Chernobyl incident, but that wasn't enough to prevent it from havin…

We have modern designs that Litterally can not melt down. No meltdown means no explosion.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#242

Post by smegger001 »

charlieyu1 wrote: post #161
atonse wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know though, Chernobyl and Fukushima had completely different reasons and don't really clump together apart from "both were meltdowns" Chernobyl was entirely a product of design compromises due to cost savings, combined by a totalitarian system suppressing the known impact of those design decisions. It was also a much older design. Fukushima also seemed like a design mistake (I remember reading it that th…

So 2 mistakes in the last 50 years, each wiping out a radius of 25km from being habitable for 1000 years. I won’t trust people for not making more mistakes.

Its not likely to be a thousand years before its habitatable again. Long lived isotopes are safer as they are less radioactive and less energetic. And short lived isotopes while dangerous are short lived. Its the medium lived that are a problem 70-150 years that are the biggest problem. Secondly we dont have to wait for it to all to be gone just down to a safe background level

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#243

Post by screye »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #141
CM30 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, nuclear seems to get a bad rep from a lot of people. I suspect this is because of a mixture of things: 1. The rare instances of it going wrong look catastrophic, while the many times it does better than coal/oil/gas go ignored. Kinda like how people fear plane travel more than driving, despite the former being far safer than the latter. 2. It's more expensive to setup, so there's an economic incentive…

"Unfortunately, nuclear seems to get a bad rep from a lot of people." Well, there was Chernobyl. Then Fukushima. I'm all for Nuclear. But I think humans have shown repeatedly they can't really handle it. So think the trepidation is justified. But, I am hoping with all the technology advances in last 50 years, maybe Nuclear can be made safe. If we do learn from past.

> Chernobyl

The worst designed reactor that led to 60 deaths ?

> Fukushima

As in, the reactor that was struck with a generational earthquauke and where no one died?

________

Compare this to other energy sources

Coal - 1500 [1]

Coal waste -12000[2]

You can keep going down this[3] list. Nuclear disasters are a mere blip. Only solar is any safer.

[1]April 26, 1942: Benxihu Colliery disaster in Benxi, Liaoning, China. 1,549 workers died, in the worst coal mine accident ever in the world

[2] December 1952: The Great Smog of London caused by the burning of coal, and to a lesser extent wood, killed 12,000 people within days to months due to inhalation of the smog.

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#244

Post by acuozzo »

lunarboy wrote: post #237
rpozarickij wrote: post #150

The sad reality is that the humanity probably needs some type of big climate-related event that would act as a wake up call when it comes to the urgency of climate change. We need something that people can relate to with their senses or emotions. Data by itself can only get us so far.

Apocalyptic fires in California, NE Canada, Australia; harder and stronger storms; record heat waves and cold waves every year.. What more visual, personally affecting climate events do we need? Like for Africa or India to quite literally become unlivable?

Yes.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#245

Post by guepe »

tonyarkles wrote: post #232
guepe wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m interested in details. Nuclear is very expensive and not going down, while batteries are. So with your analysis, it could be possible to estimate how low batteries have to go before meeting nuclear… It could be irrealistic but let’s see !

On the nuclear side I was looking at a GE BWRX-300 (SMR) because my province is currently looking at building a few of them. Specs: 300MWe, nominally $1B first-of-a-kind build cost and $675M next-of-a-kind build cost. Runtime between fuel changes is 18-24 months. -- On the battery side I was looking at the Tesla Megapack 2 XL, since our neighbouring province has a bit of capacity installed. Specs: 979kW output per pa…

That’s interesting. The quotes for the nuclear power plant are really low though. France, which has a lot of knowledge and trained workforce for nuclear, is slowly building a reactor of 1.2gwe for like 20B euros. If you use those numbers… it looks very different. And that’s at least not idealistic price since it’s they are completing the construction.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#246

Post by tonyarkles »

guepe wrote: post #245
tonyarkles wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the nuclear side I was looking at a GE BWRX-300 (SMR) because my province is currently looking at building a few of them. Specs: 300MWe, nominally $1B first-of-a-kind build cost and $675M next-of-a-kind build cost. Runtime between fuel changes is 18-24 months. -- On the battery side I was looking at the Tesla Megapack 2 XL, since our neighbouring province has a bit of capacity installed. Specs: 979kW output per pa…

That’s interesting. The quotes for the nuclear power plant are really low though. France, which has a lot of knowledge and trained workforce for nuclear, is slowly building a reactor of 1.2gwe for like 20B euros. If you use those numbers… it looks very different. And that’s at least not idealistic price since it’s they are completing the construction.

Yeah, I'm really curious to see how the SMR thing shakes out over time. It does make sense to me that the costs between large bespoke reactors and smaller modular reactors would not necessarily be a linear scaling by MWe. Another factor that affects the price significantly is whether or not the reactor is being built at an existing site that is already licensed or whether it's a scratch-build at a new site.

https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/8... talks about the Shin Kori 3 and 4 reactors (brought online in 2016 and 2019) costing $6.4B USD for the pair (after a 32% cost overrun), if I'm reading correctly. Those ones are 1416MW and 1418MW, or $2258/kW which is right in line with GE's estimate of a next-of-a-kind SMR build (spec sheet says $2250/kW)

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#247

Post by FrustratedMonky »

smegger001 wrote: post #241
cesarb wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As far as I know though, Chernobyl and Fukushima had completely different reasons and don't really clump together apart from "both were meltdowns" A glass-half-empty view of that would be that there isn't a single reason which could be fixed to avoid all future issues. Fukushima AFAIK didn't have the design and operational mistakes which led to the Chernobyl incident, but that wasn't enough to prevent it from havin…

We have modern designs that Litterally can not melt down. No meltdown means no explosion.

Maybe. I'm trusting one comment on internet.

I'm pretty sure the Chernobyl engineers also said "this is impossible", "this is very safe design that can not fail". Only in hindsight did the failures appear.

For Fukushima. Sure, once in a lifetime earthquake. It's always something, and at some point walls can't go any higher. Seems like backup pumps should have been on higher ground. But to think nobody will do something similarly silly again, is being pretty trusting.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#248

Post by bigfont »

chrsw wrote: post #98

Who is going to pay for polluting the atmosphere? I don't think it will be the people who had the most to gain from polluting in the first place.

That doesn't sound fair to me either. The subset of people who have benefitted from polluting won't have to foot the clean-up bill. So those who want lush, temperate, and healthy surroundings may have to take charge, even though it isn't fair. I certainly feel grumpy about those who benefit from polluting, when others have to deal with the effect. It would be nice if they were more responsible, so we didn't have to figure this all out. I gave up on that happening, and instead have started to change my own part in this. It's a shift from the justice model to the effectiveness model.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#249

Post by FrustratedMonky »

screye wrote: post #243
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Unfortunately, nuclear seems to get a bad rep from a lot of people." Well, there was Chernobyl. Then Fukushima. I'm all for Nuclear. But I think humans have shown repeatedly they can't really handle it. So think the trepidation is justified. But, I am hoping with all the technology advances in last 50 years, maybe Nuclear can be made safe. If we do learn from past.

> Chernobyl The worst designed reactor that led to 60 deaths ? > Fukushima As in, the reactor that was struck with a generational earthquauke and where no one died? ________ Compare this to other energy sources Coal - 1500 [1] Coal waste -12000[2] You can keep going down this[3] list. Nuclear disasters are a mere blip. Only solar is any safer. [1]April 26, 1942: Benxihu Colliery disaster in Benxi, Liaoning, China. 1,…

I don't think you are including the deaths in following years from the radiation poisoning. Those numbers are just 'the day of'.

But also. I agree, Coal industry has a lot of deaths too. Far more year over year. And things like settling ponds should be more regulated. Lot of deaths from coal waste holding damns failing.

So. Think you are little cherry picking stats to show Nuclear "isn't that bad", and Coals "very bad". When truth is really somewhere in middle.

Think in this, the disconnect, you are discounting the potential much higher risk potential with Nuclear.

A coal damn giving way, kills everyone in the downstream town, maybe hundreds.

But if worst case Nuclear disaster, has much higher potential, millions.

Really in Chernobyl and Fukushima, we got lucky, they turned out to be bad, close calls, but in each we were saved at the last minute, so not so bad.

Both were minutes away from much higher releases. Both could have wiped out their entire country. Potentially, Ukraine and Japan could both be gone today, not exist as countries, by the time you factor into half the country farmland gone, and major cities un-inhabitable.

That sounds dramatic. But think that is what a risk matrix would point out. So how much risk can we tolerate? Is Climate Change risk finally in the public mind enough to overcome the Nuclear risk?

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#250

Post by smegger001 »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #247
smegger001 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have modern designs that Litterally can not melt down. No meltdown means no explosion.

Maybe. I'm trusting one comment on internet. I'm pretty sure the Chernobyl engineers also said "this is impossible", "this is very safe design that can not fail". Only in hindsight did the failures appear. For Fukushima. Sure, once in a lifetime earthquake. It's always something, and at some point walls can't go any higher. Seems like backup pumps should have been on higher ground. But to think nobody will do somethi…

The difference is in Chernobyl there were mechanical safety systems to stop a meltdown. current designs are such that physics prevents it from being able to melt down. While its possible to improperly maintain safety systems causing them to fail, physics doesn't need maintenance.
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