Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest • Hacker News Board

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#381

Post by bmcusick » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 6:48 PM UTC

iheartmemcache wrote: post #302

CydeWeys wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be surprised if the biggest source of injury from solar wasn't from installers falling off roofs. You can't count all of those injuries against solar itself, though, as roofing injuries will happen regardless, and putting up solar panels greatly extends the life of a roof, so the amortized total injury to installers doesn't go up as much.

Probably true, though for what its worth OSHA[0] (yeah yeah "nanny state" and all) dictates pretty clearly the federal obligations on training and equipping roof workers with full body harnesses, lanyards, and proper anchorage points to effectively eliminate fall related injuries. Whether or not the employe(e|r) adheres to these regulations[1] is another issue, but the risk can effectively be mitigated almost entirel…

One factor in Tesla's favor then is their stated objective of handling the solar roof installation in house. Unless they resort to the same shady practices that Verizon uses for tower installation, direct control (and responsibility for) their installers should lend itself to mandating best practices on the safety angle.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#382

Post by pps43 » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 6:48 PM UTC

scaryclam wrote: post #345

pps43 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is not how many people have died, but how bad the impact can be. Even if nobody dies, the need to evacuate a large city like New York or Tokyo because a nuclear power plant nearby underwent rapid unplanned deconstruction might easily wipe off all economic gains from the nuclear energy, and then some.

As opposed to...the entire planet being affected, like it is with fossil fuels?

Solar, wind, hydro do not affect the entire planet. Even burning fossil fuels might be ok, if combined with CO2 sequestration.

But this is irrelevant. I'm just saying that you do a comparison, you need to take into consideration risks, too. Otherwise buying any kind of insurance looks pretty irrational.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#383

Post by jbg_ » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 6:48 PM UTC

outworlder wrote: post #324

beat wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you tell me something "completely eliminates" the possibility of failure in complex industrial design - you're being emotional rather than logical. Look, I'm actually pro-nuclear. But I think the arguments made for nuclear power are mostly awful, driven by techno-fetishism and wishful thinking rather than real logic. The "But I'm logical and you're just emotional!" argument is itself an emotional argument, a rus…

> When you tell me something "completely eliminates" the possibility of failure in complex industrial design - you're being emotional rather than logical. No. Modern reactor designs are actually designed in a way that makes it difficult to maintain the reaction. If you are not actively maintaining it, then it will stop on its own. This is opposed to the most common existing designs, where you need to expend effort to…

> This is not to say that they cannot fail in some novel ways.

So, then, they do not "completely eliminate" the possibility of failure. Your last sentence seems to contradict the "No." at the beginning of your reply.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#384

Post by fsloth » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 6:49 PM UTC

pil4rin wrote: post #373

beat wrote: post #369

Of course, this is only comparing to fossil sources, not solar, wind, or other renewables (except biomass). I don't think this is going to matter in the end, though. The best, most optimistic arguments the nuclear proponents can make would still take 20-30 years to build out enough to make a standard-deviation difference in greenhouse gasses. Meanwhile, solar/wind are already hitting production costs that rival or be…

Not to mention not having some nuclear waste to store for the rest of the foreseeable future.

Yes, it's much better to burn up the fuel and spread it into the atmosphere where it will cause a massive climate change. Note:I'm comparing nuclear to fossil fuels which was the only tradeoff until some time ago.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#385

Post by alphonsegaston » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 6:49 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #275

lispm wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear energy was politicized from day minus one. It was developed out of government driven military technology. In day zero nuclear energy was set up by politicians: goals, strategies, financing, deployment, risk handling, etc. Everything was coming from energy politics. Investments were directed and the market&regulations for nuclear were set up. Government largely financed it and insures it. The large scale, the…

Yet the Japanese use/used the crap out of nuclear. You'd think they of all people would want nothing to do with it. At the end of the day it's all about dollars.

The Japanese people do largely want nothing to do with nuclear energy. Opposition to it still triggers some of their largest scale protests in a country that does everything to shy away from this kind of unrest.

But the political reality is that Japan is a client state of the US empire and the base of its operations in SE Asia. It's not functionally a democracy. The people who made money off of it were the alliance of conservative politicians and organized crime, backed by the CIA, who brought it to the country in the first place.

http://www.japansubculture.com/how-the-cia-helped-put-the-ya...

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#386

Post by graphitezepp » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 6:49 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #328

The ironic thing is, and I'll probably be downvoted for even positing this, but Chernobyl was the best thing that ever happened to that local environment, at least when you look how local wildlife has bounced back since it's been cordoned off as an exclusion zone. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/060418-chernobyl-...

Been talking about this for years. Yes nuclear has some scary dangerous factors. But in the real world example of things going horribly wrong the long term damage just isn't as bad as what people talk about.

Unless of course all that wildlife is getting crazy amounts of cancer that I don't know about and I am wrong.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#387

Post by jonshariat » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 6:50 PM UTC

I"m not saying this is the main factor for not choosing nuclear but this should be considered: the one difference with Nuclear is that when a system fails, you can't use that area of land for a few thousand years.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#388

Post by agumonkey » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 6:50 PM UTC

A French engineer, Jean-Marc Jancovici, has been claiming this for a decade, with many talks and documents. I'm only 80% fan of his reflection because he doesn't account much for human change and new technological reconfiguration.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#389

Post by hashmal » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 6:51 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #369

Of course, this is only comparing to fossil sources, not solar, wind, or other renewables (except biomass). I don't think this is going to matter in the end, though. The best, most optimistic arguments the nuclear proponents can make would still take 20-30 years to build out enough to make a standard-deviation difference in greenhouse gasses. Meanwhile, solar/wind are already hitting production costs that rival or be…

Nuclear being safer than other major sources just means we shouldn't demonize it and stop everything right now out of panic. it means it's just an important asset while waiting for renewables to take off.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#390

Post by brianpan » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 6:52 PM UTC

jsonne wrote: post #320

Koromix wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are scared of nuclear energy for the same reason that they're scared of taking an airplane. Even though it's technically and statistically very safe, the perceived risk appears much greater. [...] I'm more worried about global warming than Fukushima and I'd gladly trade even a dozen of Fukushima-type incidents in the next decades (highly unlikely) if it could stop global warming and its dire, hard-to-revert…

I'm no biologist or scientist of any sort, but it seems this is a problem with all apex predators to some degree. You get to the top of the food chain by adapting to and being highly reactive to short term and catastrophic risk. Once you get there you have to do a 180 and suddenly be highly attuned to subtle and long term issues to stay there. It's simply a different skill set and frame of mind.

Is there anything in all of biology that IS attuned to subtle and long-term issues? I think I would argue that we are the closest to that.