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

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#251

Post by pdonis » Sun, Apr 03, 2011, 11:11 PM UTC

gaspard wrote: post #236

pdonis wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 proliferati…

I don't believe reprocessing means "no waste" but anyway, that's just half of the problem: what will we do in 50 years ? And how do you reprocess the lives of the 200'000 people who had to leave after the nuclear accident in Tchernobyl alone ? Tell the fishermen by Fukushima to go reprocess their lives because some over-confident engineers thought they mastered what they were doing. Nuclear power is just like the "gr…

I didn't mean to imply that reprocessing meant no waste: it means a lot less waste, that needs to be stored safely for a much shorter time. Also, since it allows you to use the fuel much more efficiently (without reprocessing, only a couple of percent of the usable fuel actually gets used; the rest ends up mixed in with the waste and is just stored without being used), it does solve the 50 year problem as well.

That said, I also didn't mean to say that we shouldn't consider all the impacts of nuclear power. But, as many others in this thread have commented, to be fair we should also consider all the impacts of other power sources as well.

As for a less power greedy way of living, I'm all for it, as long as I don't have to give up actual functionality. I'm all for having more efficient cars, but I'm not going to give up having a car; the freedom it gives me is too valuable to give up. (And no, living somewhere where I don't need a car to have that freedom is not an option. Been there, done that, prefer not to. Not everyone wants to live in that kind of environment.)

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#252

Post by euromix » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 12:18 AM UTC

phlux wrote: post #88

veidr wrote: post #77

I looooves me some electricity. So, even though I'm presently suffering some annoyances in my daily life here in Tokyo (sporadically contaminated drinking water, suspect milk and other foodstuffs, not enough electricity to maintain our previous standard of living, Internet outages forfuckssake), and even though I bristle any time anybody (this article's author included) ignorantly implies that we know all the bad thi…

> collectively, as a society (or separately, as a bunch of disparate societies), we just might not be mature enough in our thinking to strike the right balance of precaution and preparedness to handle nuclear power as safely as it should be handled. This was precisely my point. Why the fark CANT we come together over the singularly most important resource modern and future civilization needs, energy. We humans are re…

i see those pics and remember the typhoon season is coming rather soon.... I pray for very small typhoons this year.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#253

Post by Natsu » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 1:03 AM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #250

Natsu wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would advise Googling such things, but just so you know, "non sequitur" means "it doesn't follow" in Latin. He's saying that what you said doesn't make much sense as a reply to that other post. Indeed, I'm not quite sure what your point was, there. If it was a joke, I missed it completely.

OT mentioned all the side costs of photovoltaic power, waste materials, pollution and so on, while stressing the simplicity of creating nuclear power. So my remark simply was meant to draw attention to the waste products of nuclear power. Is it not logical to throw it into equation for nuclear power, too, if you throw it into the equation for photovoltaic power?

Thanks for clarifying. Your original comment was pretty confusing, though, as a reply.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#254

Post by veidr » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 2:09 AM UTC

nl wrote: post #181

Only marginally related, but it has been surprising to me that US media seems to talk about the risk of a "radiation cloud floating over the Pacific" (which is effectively a non-existent risk to health), and yet doesn't talk about the risk to Californian nuclear plants from earthquakes & tsunamis. For example, to quote Wikipedia: Diablo Canyon Power Plant is an electricity-generating nuclear power plant at Avila Beac…

Urrgh, I agree, this is so ludicrous and stupid. I wish I could say it was surprising, but it is an example of what I mean when I say 'maybe we (collectively) aren't mature enough to handle '.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#255

Post by danenania » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 3:27 AM UTC

cturner wrote: post #65

danenania wrote: post #59

"History suggests that nuclear power rarely kills and causes little illness. That’s also the conclusion engineers reach when they model scenarios for thousands of potential accidents." Auditing nuclear power's extremely short history is not a valid method of assessing risk. In poker they call this 'results oriented thinking'. Especially when discussing black swan events, history is almost by definition not a very use…

The history is not 'extremely short'. Nuclear has been in operation for decades. If fact, history inflates the risk by bringing into consideration known weaknesses of earlier reactor designs.

"The history is not 'extremely short'. Nuclear has been in operation for decades."

In the context of highly unlikely events and the mathematics of probability, a period of decades is an extremely small sample. Consider that some of the types of events we are discussing may only happen once in a century. Clearly in this case several decades is not enough to fully gauge what the true risks of nuclear are to humans in the long term. One worst case scenario disaster would tip the scales quite heavily.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#256

Post by danenania » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 3:39 AM UTC

Turing_Machine wrote: post #202

danenania wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every design was once a modern design. Nuclear power is inherently unsafe. That's why we're having this discussion.

Claiming something doesn't make it so, not even if you do it repeatedly and use lots of italics. It's not really a "discussion" when you're just saying the same thing over and over, without addressing the data presented by others or providing any data of your own.

That's because none of the data posted is relevant to my point. I'm arguing that it is extremely unethical to subject people and the environment to any significant risk of nuclear disaster. When the risk is such that multiple incidents are all but guaranteed over a long time period (like 50 or 100 years), we are effectively agreeing to the principle that productivity and efficiency are greater concerns than some hundreds or thousands or millions of lives (we can't predict the number) and worth destroying and sacrificing those lives in exchange for. I reject this principle, as any sane person should. I believe coal energy should be evaluated on the same basis.

The reason to focus on nuclear over coal power and other bad industrial practices is that nuclear still has a lot of support among educated people. Coal has been discredited. No one thinks we should build more coal plants (aside from those who profit from them). But the amount of cheerleading you see for nuclear among a population like HN's is incredible. I don't know if it's a testament to the industry's financial weight or what, but it's clearly getting a pass where other harmful industries are not. That's bad.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#257

Post by danenania » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 6:24 AM UTC

_urga wrote: post #247

asharp wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not believe that is his definition of safe. I believe he is using the standard definition of safe, for a power source, which is expected deaths/Twh.

Deaths per TWH is no real measure of safety at all when it comes to nuclear. Accidents affect not only human beings but the environment and indeed entire continents and the ecosystems thereof. Even today when they hunt wild boar in Germany many of the boar are found to have been irradiated as a result of Chernobyl, and hazardous for consumption. These events cross borders. It would be foolish to attempt to comprehend…

Brilliant post. Thanks for getting my point across much better than I could. It really is like Animal Farm.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#258

Post by lispm » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 7:58 AM UTC

Lost_BiomedE wrote: post #217

lispm wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How long does the passive cooling work?

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#259

Post by VladRussian » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 7:01 PM UTC

Natsu wrote: post #244

VladRussian wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Advanced lasers? Powerful magnets? this 2, laser driven inertial confinement and tokamak, don't pose a significant proliferation risk even/when they are successful. Unfortunately this 2 is also least promising as the decades of experiments have clearly shown. As a result, there is no rush of investments into them. The proliferation risk is creation of relatively compact, say, in the first generation, up to transport…

I have a hard time believing that a fusion power source would work at all like a fusion bomb. Quite the opposite: one needs to keep the reaction under control, so keeping it small makes things easier. I suppose, in theory, it's possible, but I doubt it. If you have a citation for where Sandia says there are proliferation risks, I would be interested.

it isn't a yield (like shock/heat wave, etc...) that is the primary purpose of neutron weapons. The neutron flux is what they are created for. Just for example - the neutron weapons deployed in Europe several decades ago were of very low yield, as low as it is possible with fissile-fusion weapon - their purpose was to stop Soviet Union tanks as intense neutron flux passes easily through the armor, yet is absorbed nicely by humans as we're 80% water.

>I have a hard time believing that a fusion power source would work at all like a fusion bomb.

No need to. The only thing what matters is the amount of neutrons generated. High intensity flux during 10-30sec. instead of super-high during 0.001ms explosion would do the same damage if the total amount of neutrons generated is the same.

I mentioned Sandia because what they do (more precisely what they did 10 years ago) was the most effective and promising way to get effective fusion - for energy generation as well as to weaponize it without fission part, and i think it is illustrative to look at them to see how progress has stalled (more precisely it was redirected from advancing of the engineering of the fusion into more plasma research) when it became that clear.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#260

Post by Natsu » Mon, Apr 04, 2011, 8:24 PM UTC

VladRussian wrote: post #259

Natsu wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time believing that a fusion power source would work at all like a fusion bomb. Quite the opposite: one needs to keep the reaction under control, so keeping it small makes things easier. I suppose, in theory, it's possible, but I doubt it. If you have a citation for where Sandia says there are proliferation risks, I would be interested.

it isn't a yield (like shock/heat wave, etc...) that is the primary purpose of neutron weapons. The neutron flux is what they are created for. Just for example - the neutron weapons deployed in Europe several decades ago were of very low yield, as low as it is possible with fissile-fusion weapon - their purpose was to stop Soviet Union tanks as intense neutron flux passes easily through the armor, yet is absorbed nic…

So you're saying it would be used to make a neutron bomb? Interesting.

I do understand that practical fusion requires neutron flux, but I didn't think we had achieved any significant amount of fusion capable of producing such a flux.