Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 63 posts

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#41

Post by robk »

lispm wrote: post #32
AngryParsley wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but you're wrong about the safety of renewables. The statistic you're looking for is called deaths per terawatt-hour. Nuclear wins by an order of magnitude: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/lowering-deaths-per-terawat... For the same amount of energy, renewables kill more people than nuclear. People fall off their roofs installing solar panels. Hydroelectric dams burst. Even windmills kill people. For the next…

Here in Germany we are now at 25% renewable energy for electricity. Without much hydro. Expect to see something close to 40% in 2020. There are lots of environmental impacts of renewable energy, but generally the acceptance is higher than for nuclear or coal.

At an extraordinarily high cost to the taxpayer. Well above what any rational body would have/should have paid for getting to this level.

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#42

Post by danielharan »

AngryParsley wrote: post #28
danielharan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more than 600 power plants in the US that use fossil fuels, the 600 is just for coal. As for the severity of the earthquake, it's far more important to consider proximity than absolute magnitude. A smaller one closer or right under could have been catastrophic. A few of us consider building plants in active tectonic zones to be the height of insanity. Building it right by the shore, in historical tsunami zo…

Sorry, but you're wrong about the safety of renewables. The statistic you're looking for is called deaths per terawatt-hour. Nuclear wins by an order of magnitude: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/lowering-deaths-per-terawat... For the same amount of energy, renewables kill more people than nuclear. People fall off their roofs installing solar panels. Hydroelectric dams burst. Even windmills kill people. For the next…

Yes, an order of magnitude if you only count rooftop solar. NOT if you count wind. Maybe for efficiency, people replacing lightbulbs and motors are at risk of death.

Yet for both wind and solar, this reflects all known risk, while for nuclear we still have to deal with catastrophic risks as well as storage of spent fuel.

As to the only alternative to nuclear being fossil fuels, someone should tell it to countries investing in solar power (especially concentrated) or wind. Germany and China come to mind.

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#43

Post by danielharan »

robk wrote: post #41
lispm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Germany we are now at 25% renewable energy for electricity. Without much hydro. Expect to see something close to 40% in 2020. There are lots of environmental impacts of renewable energy, but generally the acceptance is higher than for nuclear or coal.

At an extraordinarily high cost to the taxpayer. Well above what any rational body would have/should have paid for getting to this level.

So someone proves an argument unsound, and you just say they're crazy? Nice.

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#44

Post by please_no »

Whatever. Nuclear power is awesome when properly designed and implemented. They might as well use a combination of geothermal and hydrokinetic power from their volcano and beaches, and really cause harm to their Island.

Where else are they going to get portable, eco-friendly, and cheap (long run) power?

The Sun?

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#45

Post by konstruktor »

derleth wrote: post #17
Zebra0815 wrote: post #16

I'm a German and therefore do have another opinion :p The anti-nuclear movement is not based on anti-scientific and scaremongering - we have Nobel price winners who support that cause and wrote scientific papers of this very issue. The question asked by them is different from the topic you guys are talking about currently: * What happens to the radioactive stuff that is created at the end of every of the energy produ…

> The anti-nuclear movement is not based on anti-scientific and scaremongering - we have Nobel price winners who support that cause and wrote scientific papers of this very issue This doesn't necessarily follow, logically. In order to make the case, we'd need to go point-by-point. > What happens to the radioactive stuff that is created at the end of every of the energy producing process? Coal just puts it into the at…

Which is fine, because those who get the cheap power breathe it, i.e. the risk/reward system is mostly local. As I have written several times before, nuclear power is a black swan type of risk with non-local risk realization, whereas coal has a more typical distribution of risk realization, and the effects are more local. This makes it hard to compare them by comparing average risk. As somebody from a country which decided against Nuclear by referendum just years before getting a lot of fallout from Chernobyl, I am also very sensitive to the fact that I have hardly any political influence on nuclear power plants that can affect me.

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#46

Post by lispm »

robk wrote: post #41
lispm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Germany we are now at 25% renewable energy for electricity. Without much hydro. Expect to see something close to 40% in 2020. There are lots of environmental impacts of renewable energy, but generally the acceptance is higher than for nuclear or coal.

At an extraordinarily high cost to the taxpayer. Well above what any rational body would have/should have paid for getting to this level.

The taxpayer is paying nothing.

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#47

Post by lispm »

AngryParsley wrote: post #37
danielharan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Canada, we only had to look at the track record on construction and maintenance times, as well as budget overruns, to conclude that management was incompetent. So yes, in theory, nuclear is safer. But with those clowns in charge? As far as environmentalists reading the science, you've missed out on renewables. Most importantly, a large part of our energy problems can be solved by reducing demand. This can be much…

Most importantly, a large part of our energy problems can be solved by reducing demand. Has any civilization ever voluntarily reduced energy usage? You might as well ask people to breathe less.

EU does that. It's necessary.

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#48

Post by AngryParsley »

lispm wrote: post #32
AngryParsley wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but you're wrong about the safety of renewables. The statistic you're looking for is called deaths per terawatt-hour. Nuclear wins by an order of magnitude: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/lowering-deaths-per-terawat... For the same amount of energy, renewables kill more people than nuclear. People fall off their roofs installing solar panels. Hydroelectric dams burst. Even windmills kill people. For the next…

Here in Germany we are now at 25% renewable energy for electricity. Without much hydro. Expect to see something close to 40% in 2020. There are lots of environmental impacts of renewable energy, but generally the acceptance is higher than for nuclear or coal.

Yes, 25% of electricity produced in Germany comes from renewables. But Germany imports 2/3rds of its energy, so less than 10% of domestic consumption is from renewables.

Here's a tangentially-related fact: France is the world's largest energy exporter. 75% of their production comes from nuclear. Germany is still dependent on nuclear power, they just passed the buck.

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#49

Post by Dn_Ab »

bluedanieru wrote: post #9

Here's where I'm at now on nuclear power, as someone who has lived in Tokyo for the last 7 1/2 years: 'Nuclear scaremongers' are right, that is to say they have a point, but for the wrong reasons. They are wrong that nuclear power is inherently dangerous, or that it's bad for the environment when compared e.g. coal, or basically whatever other anti-scientific bullshit they care to trot out to support their anti-nucle…

Right, the only real argument against nuclear is unfortunately a big one. Humans are simply not far-thinking and reliable enough to be trusted to properly manage all stages of a nuclear plant's lifecycle. But rather than give up -

Is there any research being done to automate as much as possible such that the required operators becomes small enough for it to be feasible to confidently vet that they are intelligent and scrupled enough to understand the consequences of cutting corners? And also make it hard to build it the wrong way by removing as many variables as possible?

Re: Japan Commits to Eliminating Nuclear Power

#50

Post by lispm »

AngryParsley wrote: post #48
lispm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Germany we are now at 25% renewable energy for electricity. Without much hydro. Expect to see something close to 40% in 2020. There are lots of environmental impacts of renewable energy, but generally the acceptance is higher than for nuclear or coal.

Yes, 25% of electricity produced in Germany comes from renewables. But Germany imports 2/3rds of its energy, so less than 10% of domestic consumption is from renewables. Here's a tangentially-related fact: France is the world's largest energy exporter. 75% of their production comes from nuclear. Germany is still dependent on nuclear power, they just passed the buck.

Germany has an export surplus (!) of 10TWh electricity in the first half of 2012. We are among the world's largest exporters of electricity.
Post reply on HN