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Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

nytimes.com

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Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#341

Post by Confusion »

bsder wrote: post #285
MichaelApproved wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Newer reactor designs can avoid these issues. I have a fundamental mistrust of the industry and our government's ability to properly regulate it. That mistrust is based on historical facts. Even with newer designs, I think human error and regulatory capture is too dangerous to make nuclear viable.

> Even with newer designs, I think human error and regulatory capture is too dangerous to make COAL viable. Note the change from nuclear to coal. Just so you know, you get more radiation from coal burning plants than nuclear plants. Don't believe me: http://boingboing.net/2011/08/18/what-fukushima-can-teach-us... Original paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/108/35/14422.abstract tl;dr: Fukushima radioactivity measurem…

This. So much this. People don't know what the hell they're talking about when it comes to nuclear power, but it doesn't stop them from talking about it as if they were experts.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#343

Post by kodfodrasz »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #324
kodfodrasz wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was nothing ad hominem in my previous post, but now here is some: I'm talking about nuclear industry, but it seems you are talking about captain planet or teenage mutant turtles... Mutations happen regardless of nuclear spills. They are a driving force of evolution. Now more seriously: The human race would easily survive without seafish. Maybe in smaller numbers, but for example in the inlands people eat much l…

> You provide no numbers just do the usual empty nuke-bashing That's ad hominem, Tex

That was just a fact. Q.E.D.

(What did you mean by Tex?)

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#344

Post by roenxi »

smsm42 wrote: post #226
koolba wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That problem is so very far from solved, and it's a massive problem. I thought the problem was solved: 1. Dig hole. 2. Put it in hole. 3. Guard hole.

There's a fourth dimension to it - remembering why the hole needs to be guarded for 10000 years. And if you imagine trying to have a conversation with a human from 10000 years ago, you'll realize how non-trivial that is - no language, culture or knowledge capture system would survive for this long intact. There is a fascinating body of research about how to solve this problem (with no definite answer). E.g. see https…

I would like to take this moment to vent, and wave at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_catastrophic_risk .

The argument that we need to do something about this waste beyond the timeframe of our civilisation is mind boggling to me. This is the only risk we seem to take this seriously - in no other arena can I recall people arguing about what something will look like in 10,000 years. What about war between America and China? >1% chance, massive potential for death and destruction. Who cares if some poor person digs into an old nuclear waste dump in 500 years compared to that?

We can leave this problem to the future. If they have regressed so far that they can't detect nuclear then they have bigger problems than radiation poisoning.

Threats to energy security are so much more of a threat than potentially maybe not being able to figure out how to reprocess spent fuel until it isn't a health hazard.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#345

Post by freeflight »

kodfodrasz wrote: post #287
freeflight wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The human race would easily survive without seafish. Maybe in smaller numbers, but for example in the inlands people eat much less seafish, as they don't have seas nearby ;) If you really want to go down that route then the human race can easily survive without clean air, water, ground or any animal life on this planet. Why would we need any of that? We, at least a few of us, could just as well be living in sealed u…

Some local contaminations (Chernobyl, Fukushima) are not going to contaminate the whole planet, at most few hundred thousand square kilometers each. This is not in any way a desired event, and if nuclear technology would be developed, and not demonized, its probability could be far smaller, as many technologies are already available to avoid such accidents, which have all happened on old power plants. The German popu…

Many a little makes a mickle, as such those "some local contaminations" can add up very quickly to a very large scale, especially considering how long these contaminations last.

> This is not in any way a desired event, and if nuclear technology would be developed, and not demonized, its probability could be far smaller, as many technologies are already available to avoid such accidents, which have all happened on old power plants.

There are still hundreds of these "old power plants" active, you want to replace them all with the magical new wonder power plants which never fail and are immune to human error? How is that supposed to work, considering the costs for decommissioning and long-term waste storage?

>Please rest assured, we will not be forced to live in bunkers because of Fukushima, and even if another such tragedy would happen, we could mostly keep out lifestyles, until the global warming caused problems would cause much more changes in it.

I never claimed that we'd be all forced to live in bunkers because of Fukushima. I merely took issue with your flippant statement of "humans can survive without seafish" because that's as much of a slippery slope as it can get, thus the "surviving in a bunker just eating mushrooms" example. Humans might be just fine without eating seafish, tho the rest of this planet's ecosystem (on which we still depend to function properly) probably wouldn't. As such I don't consider the "let's just poison the oceans because humanity can survive without seafish" approach as viable.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#346

Post by luca_ing »

hackuser wrote: post #176
luca_ing wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't disagree with your assessment of carbon-based energy, the same thing (externalising the cost of their downsides) happens with nuclear energy. So if anything, they're equally terrible in that regard.

> the same thing (externalising the cost of their downsides) happens with nuclear energy. / So if anything, they're equally terrible in that regard. That isn't true. There are externalities for both, but the externalities for carbon are far greater. The above statement is like saying: No houses are free to buy; therefore all houses are equally costly.

> That isn't true.

That's rather sweeping, don't you think? If anything, my statement might be an oversimplification. But untrue? I wouldn't be surprised if they were of a similar order of magnitude. Like houses (Michael Jackson's mansion and similar outliers excluded).

> the externalities for carbon are far greater

Do you have numbers to back that up? (I don't).

But keep in mind that it's not yet clear how expensive it will be to de-construct reactors and store nuclear waste for millenia. Just that it's going to be very, very expensive. And probably footed by the taxpayer.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#347

Post by wiz21c »

bitJericho wrote: post #327
terminado wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I feel as though modern acceptable standards of near-immediate obsolescence as normal are kind of depressing and abnormal. Seeing technology become outdated after 3-4 years is kind of amazing in all the wrong ways. Don't get me wrong, I understand that what we're really seeing is explosive advances, and to think about being stuck where we were 3-4 years ago, frozen in time, without permission to advance i…

If drivers were open sourced so much of our tech would still be useful 10 or 20 years on. Manufactured obsolescence is really hurting society.

True. My scanner is second hand. It was given to me because its drivers were not compatible with windows 7 onward. Thanks to linux and open drivers, this scanner got a life extension of 6 years so far and it's still doin' great.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#348

Post by beachy »

Nrsolis wrote: post #133
Spooky23 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nuclear waste is stable So long as it's stored in stable geologic formations, or controlled by stable human institutions. Where "stable" is a period of time longer than human history in many cases. >does not migrate when handled properly in containment pools Which are dependent on active management and security indefinitely. This is challenging as the service life of the plant where the pool is located and revenue i…

I've got news for you if you expect guarantees about every possible risk you might face in life: We've had not one but several nuclear disasters in the past several decades and in each case the sky hasn't come crashing down. The risks from a nuclear plant disaster are localized and controllable. The risks from runaway climate change are global and uncontrollable. The planet is going to be fine. Whether human society…

Why do people use this phrase?

Yes the planet's going to be fine, in the sense that a spherical mass will continue to orbit the sun.

But if every species but the cockroach is wiped out from runaway biological ecosystem collapse, is that really "being fine"?

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#349

Post by vidarh »

Chathamization wrote: post #225
vidarh wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two problems with this: 1) you can not look at Germany in isolation. You need to take into account the import/export market. Decommissioning nuclear plants at a faster schedule substantially altered that, which affected other countries dependency on fossil fuels. 2) Germany is to their credit aggressively trying to get rid of its fossil fuel dependency, but the decommissioning of nuclear meant they needed to offset a…

This seems to indicate that German electricity exports are actually up: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/news/2016/germa...

See point 2. In other words: They'd be up far more if the nuclear hadn't been removed, which still has the same effect of killing people.

As I said before: Until there is 0 fossil fuels, taking nuclear offline kills people by delaying fossil decommissioning.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#350

Post by lostlogin »

vkou wrote: post #292
lostlogin wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a little dishonest to state a casualty rate when the spent, toxic fuel going to be deadly for a few hundred thousand years yet. That problem is so very far from solved, and it's a massive problem.

It's also dishonest to claim (Without any qualifications) that spent nuclear fuel will be deadly for hundreds of thousands of years. Which isotopes? Deadly in what amounts? How many people do you expect our spent fuel will kill over the next ~100 years? ~1000 years? ~100,000 years? How many people do you expect coal pollution/AGW will kill over the next ~100 years? ~1000 years? How many people will hydro dam disaster…

Is there dispute over the long term toxicity of nuclear waste? It's not hard to find numerous toxic, long lived isotopes. The world has no shortage of waste and the volumes are growing, not shrinking. Im not a proponent of coal, and at the scales my part of the world needs, hydro fills most the need. Yeah, it needs maintaining but that's unlikely to be more costly than nuclear.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-lived_fission_product

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