Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize • Hacker News Board

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#441

Post by wtallis » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 9:49 AM UTC

Tomte wrote: post #427

kuzehanka wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have nuclear power plants in the middle of inhabited areas with tens of millions of people who would be immediately affected by an explosion. Cite please. The tens of millions affected by a feasible powerplant issue. Explosion is not really in the realm of feasible unless we're talking about bombs or uncontained soviet reactors.

Why would we leave out terrorist attacks? Because they destroy your argument?

A bomb powerful enough to breach reactor containment but small enough to be smuggled past power plant security is already a nuclear bomb in its own right, and would be more effective used against population centers directly.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#442

Post by jabl » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 9:49 AM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #77

OisinMoran wrote: post #25

If this interests you, I would highly recommend reading this article on molten salt reactors [0]. TL;DR: Molten salt reactors are safer (can't have a meltdown if it's already melted), smaller (could fit on the back of a truck), able to run on more abundant materials like Thorium (which in turn come from more politically stable regions), and to top it all off: not only do they leave much less nuclear waste, they can a…

The advantage of MSRs is not that they can't melt down (or that they could use thorium; that's vastly overhyped), it's that there's no volatile material in the containment building. The containment of a LWR has to be large because it fills with radioactive steam in an accident. It has to be able to contain this steam, which means at least a certain amount of structure to withstand its pressure. But MSRs don't use wat…

Yes, for reactors operating at atmospheric pressure like MSR or metal cooled reactors, the containment building is much cheaper. And by not needing stuff that stands up to 15 MPa, you can frickin' stamp out the reactors from sheet metal. Well, not quite, but a lot simpler and faster than building large pressure vessels capable of LWR pressures with 25cm thick walls.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#443

Post by v_lisivka » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 9:50 AM UTC

theshrike79 wrote: post #435

jtolmar wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone discredited the old deaths per kilowatt hour metric? [1] If not, nuclear is still the safest source of power, even including disasters like Chernoble and Fukushima. The major disasters come to mind more readily because they receive heavy media coverage, but this is in part because they're so rare, unlike the utterly routine problem of coal ash ponds spilling. Outside of major disasters, nuclear power produ…

Yep. Coal plant deaths are local news. A nuclear power plant failure (however minor) is global news for weeks and weeks.

Nuclear power plant failure, like Chornobyl, _can_ make whole continent inhabitable for thousands of years.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#444

Post by loup-vaillant » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 9:51 AM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #406

masonic wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you unaware that more nuclear waste enters the environment from burning coal than from all nuclear plant incidents combined?

Nobody wants to burn more coal except people who own stocks in coal. In other news being beat with a stick sounds like a better alternative to being blown up but most of use would prefer a massage.

The Germans seems to prefer coal to nuclear. Oh, maybe they thought lowering nuclear would increase the renewable? The renewable sure did increase, but it doesn't compensate the decrease in nuke power. What did is the other fossil fuels.

Of course, most Germans would deny that. But the fact is, reducing nuke power leave us only two alternatives: increase the consumption of coal/oil etc, or decrease energy consumption period. Solar and wind are all the rage, but they're still very little compared to nuke.

And good luck with significantly reducing energy consumption: energy is more or less the limiting factor in our economy, so decreasing it decreases the GDP. So it would mean a big fat, long term recession. Now it doesn't have to be bad, but it sure needs a significant overhaul of our societies.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#445

Post by xlog » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 9:53 AM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #325

nwallin wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in Fukushima Dai-ichi's case, for some reason (possibly financial?), it was decided that the tsunami barrier was sufficient (it wasn't) for the job, Plate tectonics was not understood or scientifically described until 65-67. It was not a widely accepted theory until later, at least the 70s. By that point, Fukushima had already been permitted and built. Without plate tectonics to create the plate shift earthquake wh…

Also, wasn't fukushima tsunami the 'biggest' in recent centuries ?

In Japan? Maybe. Globally? Not even close. As recently as 2004, there was a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that caused over 200,000 casualties (compared to the 15,000-20,000 casualties of the 2011 Japanese tsunami).

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#446

Post by vlehto » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 9:55 AM UTC

progfix wrote: post #420

Gondolin wrote: post #400

I am flabbergasted that some commenters here argue against nuclear because of waste and accidents, while ignoring that - coal produce radioactive waste too - it kills a lot more persons (without taking into account global warning) due to air pollution - the economic cost of nuclear may be underestimated, but this is nothing compared to the economic cost of global warming. Renewable (wind and solar) are extremely impo…

And I am flabbergasted (again) because of the pro nuclear power comments. Why should we create energy from something so complicated and hard to control when we have something simple and easy to grasp like water, solar and windpower? I understand statistically speaking a nuclear power plant is save, but the risk is calculated by multiplying propability of occurance and potential loss. The potential loss in a maximum c…

If you are interested in some numbers about the subject, there is very good resource for the case of British isles. The situation is of course different for USA the people per area is different. But you anyhow can get a grasp why renewables are problematic.

http://withouthotair.com/

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#447

Post by tramav » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 9:56 AM UTC

Gondolin wrote: post #400

I am flabbergasted that some commenters here argue against nuclear because of waste and accidents, while ignoring that - coal produce radioactive waste too - it kills a lot more persons (without taking into account global warning) due to air pollution - the economic cost of nuclear may be underestimated, but this is nothing compared to the economic cost of global warming. Renewable (wind and solar) are extremely impo…

>It boggles my mind that Germany made a great effort on renewable, and used this extra energy to close nuclear plants rather than coals ones.

Today Germany is still affected by the radioactive fallout (Chernobyl). For example many wild boars in Thuringia are radioactively contaminated with caesium-137. It will still take about 300 years until the radioactive caesium-137 vanishes.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#448

Post by vlehto » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 9:57 AM UTC

lispm wrote: post #413

Gondolin wrote: post #400

I am flabbergasted that some commenters here argue against nuclear because of waste and accidents, while ignoring that - coal produce radioactive waste too - it kills a lot more persons (without taking into account global warning) due to air pollution - the economic cost of nuclear may be underestimated, but this is nothing compared to the economic cost of global warming. Renewable (wind and solar) are extremely impo…

I find it puzzling that proponents of nuclear technology make various claims without any calculations to back that up. 'a vital tool agains global warming'? What does that mean in numbers? How many nuclear power plants of what types for what amount of effort would be built in what timeframe for to make any sizeable contribution? How would it work? A single reactor in the west is >10bn $ and takes a decade or more to…

http://withouthotair.com/

"A vital tool agains global warming" means that it's our only possibility. It's not about cost, it's about what is physically possible.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#449

Post by v_lisivka » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 9:57 AM UTC

theshrike79 wrote: post #439

michaelmrose wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide a timeline and justification on "millions of deaths from global warming". Why can't be invest the money in better alternatives and save the same "millions of lives" with actually sustainable tech that doesn't produce what you are describing as "thousands of deaths"

How much money and time would it take to research battery technology that could put coal and nuclear plants out of business? We know how to build nuclear NOW. Let's do it. We can turn all the plants of the second someone finds out to store terawatts of power produced by renewable means in a cost-effective manner that doesn't rely on some geological anomalies.

I bet, we will develop that technology in much much shorter time than we need to store nuclear waste.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#450

Post by pgeorgi » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 9:59 AM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #397

eigenvector wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the biggest advantages renewable energy has over both nuclear and mega-dams is that the size of project required to achieve the commonly quoted LCOE (levelized cost of energy) is much, much smaller. 50 MW or perhaps less per site, versus 1000+ MW. This means: 1. no mega projects that attract similarly sized public opposition 2. 1-2 year construction timelines instead of 10+ 3. much, much less financial and reg…

Dams produce renewable energy.

The problem is the "mega project" part of it, not the means of production.

Unlike coal or nuclear, renewables are easily scaled down without creating a huge risk: for coal, you want to go large for efficiency reasons and to ensure that the right set of filters are installed and maintained. For nuclear, there were ideas of building a nuclear power plant in every basement, but given how the power plants we have look like military bases, that seems rather unfeasible.

Once you go big, you have the issues mentioned elsewhere in the thread (sunk cost fallacy, NIMBY, ...) but also corruption and that these big sites become single points of failure.

Dams are in the same space: NIMBY, once started you can't stop, large scale construction (which is rife with corruption).

Create financially reasonable basement/rooftop level nuclear or coal systems that can be safely installed by any random electrician and operated by the home owner and the entire discussion may shift.