391–400 of 1001 posts
A bit unrelated to the Belgium story but I recently visited Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant near San Luis Obispo, CA and learned a ton about the technical details, safety systems, and policy decisions that go into operating a nuclear power plant. When operating at full capacity, it provides up to 10% of California power! While there is certainly always more such facilities can do for safety and efficiency, my impre…
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> If nuclear is so safe, how come nobody is willing to insure it? Almost every plant is bespoke, leading each plant to have unknown failure modes and rates. Additionally, insurance works by pooling risk amongst a large group of individuals but the statistical uncertainties of failure rates (too few events) and low total rate of plants leads to an incredibly uncertain risk profile.
The claim made in your first sentence is actually a reason to be concerned.
Yes, more frequent failures would make it easier for insurance companies to estimate the risk and calculate premiums but I don't exactly see how that would be good thing...
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The impression I've gotten is that almost all of the massive bills associated with nuclear power are because of an irrational fear of the radiation. Factoring in all the nuclear disasters and the radiations released from them, nuclear causes something on the order of 10,000 times fewer deaths than coal per megawatt generated.
That's kinda like saying we can release the tiger from the cage because it hasn't killed anyone while it was in the cage.
Strictly: France will no longer decommission Belgium's nuclear power plants, as Belgium will buy them. The current owner Engie are majority-owned by the French government. Apparently there also used to be a phaseout policy which is being rescinded: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/belgium-and-czechia-ram... I'm not keen on new nuclear (time and cost as much as anything else), but it's a terrible idea to phase out…
Yes. A nuclear power plant should be considered a national treasure, like a mine or hydro power plant, or any other large scale resource. To demolish a functional nuclear power facility is pure lunacy.
Yes. A nuclear power plant should be considered a national treasure, like a mine or hydro power plant, or any other large scale resource. To demolish a functional nuclear power facility is pure lunacy.
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It's worth noting that the Fukoshima disaster 1. Lead to basically zero direct deaths 2. Was caused by the forth most powerful earthquake to have ever been recorded in the world (since ~1900), and the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan 3. ~20,000 people died due to the Earthquake Requiring a nuclear plant in Belgium to be safe enough to survive what caused the Fukoshima disaster is probably not a good us…
> Lead to basically zero direct deaths Coal has lead to basically zero direct death, and a lot of indirect deaths. That's a bad way to measure the damage done by a power generation mechanism. > Was caused by the forth most powerful earthquake to have ever been recorded in the world (since ~1900), and the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan Yeah, crazy stuff happens and radioactive spills have longterm eff…
By that definition housefires also lead to very few direct deaths if most people die due to smoke inhalation instead of burning alive.
Unlike with nuclear that, even if we entirely ignore CO2 emissions and climate change the remaining "indirect" damage due to pollution and long-term effects on the environment are largely know and quantifiable and are astronomically higher per MHw produced compared to nuclear power.
I just want Belgium to go all-in on renewables, we [already have a pretty good electricity production make-up]( https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/energy/electricity-product... ) but we're still [too dependent on oil]( https://www.iea.org/countries/belgium/energy-mix ). Hopefully the current energy crisis is a wake up call.
Interesting fact: Belgium's neighbor Germany has commenced a search for a suitable place to store nuclear waste indefinitely in the 1970s. Given that such a place must be safe for hundreds of thousands of years, they have not yet found one. All the nuclear waste they've got is stored in temporary places (above ground) at former nuclear reactor sites. The search is not expected to conclude before 2040 at the very earl…
This is such a non problem, here is the waste from the entire french nuclear production ever (the red cube): https://www.discoverthegreentech.com/wp-content/uploads/2023... Meanwhile I've been filtering the german coal byproducts with my lungs, and paying my electricity 2-3x more per kwh than the french