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Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

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

#501

Post by BinaryIdiot »

rsync wrote: post #476
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reasoning is really closed minded and nonsensical. I've never seen the literature where people said "they are safe! Nothing could ever happen!". In fact melt downs are in many hollywood movies so I'm not sure how anyone could ever get this narrative. Also, Chernobyl and Fukushima never "blew up". There are myths that many still believe today that a nuclear power plant can explode like a nuclear bomb (it can't).…

"Also, Chernobyl and Fukushima never "blew up". There are myths that many still believe today that a nuclear power plant can explode like a nuclear bomb (it can't)." A failed nuclear power plant can indeed explode like a nuclear bomb and it is generally believed that explosion #2 (there were two major explosions) at chernobyl was the result of a criticality and analogous to "the explosion of a fizzled nuclear weapon.…

> A failed nuclear power plant can indeed explode like a nuclear bomb and it is generally believed that explosion #2 (there were two major explosions) at chernobyl was the result of a criticality and analogous to "the explosion of a fizzled nuclear weapon."

Your statement seems to oppose itself. Fizzled would not be like a nuclear bomb so I don't quite understand what you're trying to refer to here. There is a reason the paper uses the word "fizzled". A nuclear power plant does not contain the necessary materials or force to create a nuclear fission explosion.

Remember, the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 13,000t to 18,000t TNT but the explosion at Chernobyl released some radiation and exploded with 10t TNT.

There are a few orders of magnitude between "fizzled nuclear weapon" and a "nuclear bomb".

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

#502

Post by rsync »

nnfy wrote: post #472
rsync wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And at the core of all this we have the issue that radiation is a silent killer. We can't smell it, we can't see it, we can't feel it. This amps up the fear element greatly." As well it should. Dangerous things that you cannot detect with any of your human senses are rightly to be feared. This behavior is well-preserved in humans for a reason.

Thats borderline ludditeism. We can't detect CO or even CO2, should that stop us from using fire?

"Thats borderline ludditeism. We can't detect CO or even CO2, should that stop us from using fire?"

I said that fear was justified - not that we should or should not use those things.

Similarly we should indeed be afraid of CO for those very same reasons. I know I certainly have a healthy respect for, and fear of, CO.

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

#503

Post by beat »

dpark wrote: post #496
okreallywtf wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing I don't get about nuclear proponents. While I'm not an opponent, we can scale sustainable energy sources now, we could have a Manhattan project type of program that, while costly, could replace the majority of our energy sources as fast as we can manufacture the panels and turbines. There is so much lead time in building a nuclear plant, it costs so much and then continues to be pretty costly in mai…

Solar and wind don't provide predictable power. Even places with high reliance on these tend to have an ongoing dependency on coal (or nuclear) to handle times when supply from renewables drops.

Only until we provide energy storage as part of the power grid - which is coming. Capture surplus from solar/wind when the sun shines and the wind blows, dump it back into the grid when demand exceeds generation. This is doable with technology that's a century old.

We just haven't built it yet. We will.

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

#504

Post by rsync »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #501
rsync wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Also, Chernobyl and Fukushima never "blew up". There are myths that many still believe today that a nuclear power plant can explode like a nuclear bomb (it can't)." A failed nuclear power plant can indeed explode like a nuclear bomb and it is generally believed that explosion #2 (there were two major explosions) at chernobyl was the result of a criticality and analogous to "the explosion of a fizzled nuclear weapon.…

> A failed nuclear power plant can indeed explode like a nuclear bomb and it is generally believed that explosion #2 (there were two major explosions) at chernobyl was the result of a criticality and analogous to "the explosion of a fizzled nuclear weapon." Your statement seems to oppose itself. Fizzled would not be like a nuclear bomb so I don't quite understand what you're trying to refer to here. There is a reason…

"There are a few orders of magnitude between "fizzled nuclear weapon" and a "nuclear bomb"."

In magnitude, certainly - but the process (explosion resulting from criticality) is the same.

Your notion that nuclear plant accidents do not cause explosions (they have) and that those explosions cannot be similar to atomic bombs (they can be) is incorrect.

I am not categorically opposed to nuclear power. I just think it's worth getting these things right - especially when the well known details of the highest profile nuclear accident are in opposition to your claim(s).

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

#505

Post by okreallywtf »

dpark wrote: post #496
okreallywtf wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing I don't get about nuclear proponents. While I'm not an opponent, we can scale sustainable energy sources now, we could have a Manhattan project type of program that, while costly, could replace the majority of our energy sources as fast as we can manufacture the panels and turbines. There is so much lead time in building a nuclear plant, it costs so much and then continues to be pretty costly in mai…

Solar and wind don't provide predictable power. Even places with high reliance on these tend to have an ongoing dependency on coal (or nuclear) to handle times when supply from renewables drops.

This has been discussed ad nauseam, we need 1) storage, 2) smarter grids (which we need anyways). Of course there will have to be investment but what better investment could there be? We get 1) jobs, 2) cleaner air, 3) to keep living and have future generations able to live as well or better than we did.

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

#506

Post by godelski »

Animats wrote: post #458

It doesn't kill many people, because even when there's a disaster, there's time to evacuate. But you lose an entire city once in a while. Major reactor disasters so far: - SL-1. Steam explosion due to control rod lifted too far during maintenance. Small experimental reactor, built in the middle of nowhere (Idaho Reactor Test Station) for good reason. Inherently unsafe design. - Three Mile Island. Meltdown due to cool…

> But you lose an entire city once in a while.

I can only see two cases of this. Chernobyl and Fukushima. Chernobyl was early on and they pushed it well past what their safety ratings were. Fukushima, they messed up on the calculations on the 1000 year tsunami. The latter is definitely a more reasonable case to point to "things can go wrong". Because that was definitely human error.

My issue though, is we're stuck with tech that is half a century old. This would be insane to do in any other industry. Technology has progressed, but it hasn't gone into industry. PBRs can be a lot safer, and there are a lot more fail safe reactor designs. We can do small reactors with high efficiency, leading to easier containment IF there is a disaster. I love nuclear, but I do agree that building these gen II reactors is unsafe. But the new ones? I think that's the only way we're going to tackle climate change within the time frame we're aiming for.

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

#508

Post by Turing_Machine »

lispm wrote: post #500
Turing_Machine wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was more or less a prototype. No one uses power reactors to produce plutonium. It just isn't done.

The UK had 26 of these Magnox reactors for electricity production. These nuclear reactors were coming out of military technology and some of them were built and operated for dual use: Plutonium production and energy production. The UK now sits on around 140 tons of plutonium from fuel reprocessing...

The UK has about 200 warheads.

The US has almost 7,000.

The US has never used commercial power reactors to produce plutonium, because they simply aren't well-suited for the purpose.

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

#509

Post by okreallywtf »

beat wrote: post #503
dpark wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar and wind don't provide predictable power. Even places with high reliance on these tend to have an ongoing dependency on coal (or nuclear) to handle times when supply from renewables drops.

Only until we provide energy storage as part of the power grid - which is coming. Capture surplus from solar/wind when the sun shines and the wind blows, dump it back into the grid when demand exceeds generation. This is doable with technology that's a century old. We just haven't built it yet. We will.

As well as larger more interconnected grids (probably utilizing HVDC).

It reminds me of this onion article [1]. Its obviously hyperbole, there are actual real issues to resolve but compared with building nuclear weapons and going to the moon?

[1] http://www.theonion.com/article/scientists-politely-remind-w...

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

#510

Post by loup-vaillant »

oconnor663 wrote: post #165
amluto wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fukushima was a boiling water reactor, which is not a good design. A good design would be passively safe, which more or less means that you can turn off the plant and walk away without a disaster occurring.

Were the safer designs available in 1971?

I believe we had molten salt prototypes already at that time. If that design were favoured, instead of pressurised water, I bet it would have been pretty damn safe.

I believe they achieved relatively high standards despite the lack of funds anyway. (By the way, molten salt is coming back, but mostly lack the funding necessary to prototype bigger reactors.)

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