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Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

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Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#501

Post by ryathal »

BurningFrog wrote: post #145
ComputerGuru wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is only so relatively expensive because it’s the only fuel source that’s forced to pay up for all the externalities up front (and I’m not saying that is a bad thing to require). A nuclear plant can’t be built if the money to make it safe (as per some specification), insure against all health complications while it’s in operation, decommission it, clean up the site, securely dump all spent fuel, and return the…

> securely dump all spent fuel Reminder that Coal and oil energy gets to dump their spent fuel in the atmosphere, and thereby our lungs! The uneven treatment of different energy sources really is fantastic!

That's only about half their waste, the other half gets put into man made ash ponds that eventually become superfund sites, or leak into rivers and cause massive damage.

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#502

Post by grey-area »

Aeolun wrote: post #457
sokoloff wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were the builders of Fukushima unaware of the geology of Japan? I would argue that they were aware and still got hit by the risk. I don’t see “well, that specific failure won’t be what gets us in Germany” as especially compelling.

It’s hard to believe they took it fully into consideration. Or more likely someone just said ‘fuck it, just build it’ at some point. Given the costs involved however, I find it hard to imagine tepco will make the same mistake again in the next 50 years or so.

They planned for a certain level of tsunami/earthquake, but this particular tsunami exceeded norms.

They could have protected against this, but siting it near the coast is desirable for cooling purposes too (and has been helpful in some ways for cleanup as they've been able to dispose of waste in the ocean), so there are conflicting concerns here.

Things fail from time to time, if that thing failing is catastrophic, it gets very expensive to ensure 100% reliability.

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#503

Post by sto_hristo »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #49
sto_hristo wrote: post #22

Everything around the nuclear disasters has been a human bullshit of a problem, not a technological one. Probably with the exception of Fukushima, where all the conditions were put into the extreme - killer earthquake and monster tsunami. Being anxious about it is more than justified, especially with idiotic countries in mind. But that doesn't mean we need to abandon it. Nuclear is the future and there is no debate a…

What I think? I think for countries like Elbonia you can say 'here are your solar panels and batteries, have a nice day'. Can't do that with a nuke plant. Notable I'm starting to see residential HVAC equipment and EV battery chargers that tie directly to solar panels.

(side note: There are portable, assembled small nuclear reactors you can install in remote areas in months time and serve the needs of a small enterprise.)

You have a good point. If you're a small country, like the size of Luxembourg, it doesn't make sense to open a nuclear power plant - you can import and/or go the renewable route.

For industrial powerhouses and large civilizations? Different story.

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#504

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

belorn wrote: post #436
rgbrenner wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post conveniently ignores solar/wind + batteries, which is even cheaper than coal.

If solar/wind + batteries is cheaper than coal, why are new fossil fueled plants being built at a speed of about 10x capacity for every watt of renewable energy? Are people just bad at investments? If I was an investor and I would choose something that has lower cost and higher profits, especially if it also favored political. Lower costs and higher profits are pretty nice. Choosing something that cost more and has l…

Coal is a subset of fossil fuels.

The investment in fossil fuel plants is mostly because of natural gas - a great deal many of coal plants have been converted or shutdown.

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#505

Post by sto_hristo »

crispyporkbites wrote: post #55
sto_hristo wrote: post #22

Everything around the nuclear disasters has been a human bullshit of a problem, not a technological one. Probably with the exception of Fukushima, where all the conditions were put into the extreme - killer earthquake and monster tsunami. Being anxious about it is more than justified, especially with idiotic countries in mind. But that doesn't mean we need to abandon it. Nuclear is the future and there is no debate a…

Nuclear is the future indeed, the fusion reactor in the sky supplies all the energy we’ll ever need.

Problem with that is you only get a fraction of that output, more precisely, it diminishes with the power of 2 for every unit of distance between here and there.

Wouldn't it be great if humanity put its mind and effort into reliably recreating it right here in our own backyard? It's not easy, it's a process, sacrifices (most of which needless and avoidable) have been made... but in the long run, it will net us immeasurably much more than spraying the planet with large fans and solar panels.

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#506

Post by sto_hristo »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #24
sto_hristo wrote: post #22

Everything around the nuclear disasters has been a human bullshit of a problem, not a technological one. Probably with the exception of Fukushima, where all the conditions were put into the extreme - killer earthquake and monster tsunami. Being anxious about it is more than justified, especially with idiotic countries in mind. But that doesn't mean we need to abandon it. Nuclear is the future and there is no debate a…

Problem is that you don’t get to opt out of the “human bullshit”. Nuclear power comes with a massive and unavoidable cost from these matters.

Cost is massive indeed, but even in extreme cases like in Chernobyl, it will be offset to non-existence compared to the gains we will reap in the long run if we master this technology.

Remember, that nuclear is still in its early stages. Newer and better designs emerge and we're even still researching fusion.

Early cars were like a death sentence in Texas. But that didn't stop engineers from improving and making them better. What if they said after the first crash - "Screw it, back to horses and carts, this stuff is too dangerous."

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#507

Post by nine_k »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #437
jakehop wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course the probability is never 0,00%. But it is obvious that the Fukushima accident happened due to geological factors. The same power plant would hum away nicely in Germany to this day, where there is little to no seismic activity and none on the scale of what happened in Fukushima.

But unforeseen factors are always a component of accidents. Otherwise it wouldn't be an accident. Of course boost is planning for this to happen. The point is that it does happen despite planning. It won't happen in the same way in Germany but something else can happen.

But the problems were very much foreseen!

The chief architect of the Fukushima plant tried hard to convince his bosses that the wall which protects the plant is not tall enough to protect against rare but possible huge tsunami waves, but hasn't been heard. He turned out to be right.

The plant also had emergency cooling pumps, but the pumps were connected incorrectly. This was unforeseen, I can give you that.

In any case, the Fukushima disaster caused one direct human death, or something like that.

In general, modern nuclear stations are no less reliable than fossil fuel plants, and only freak accidents, like a major earthquake and a tsunami, or personnel knowingly switching off all safety systems (the Chernobyl case) lead to catastrophic failures. This still can and should be improved upon, by using reactors with inherently self-contained designs, lack of high-pressure components within the reactor, etc.

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#508

Post by bsagdiyev »

blocked_again wrote: post #325

Everyone is pro nuclear energy untill the government decides to set up a plant near your neighborhood.

Yeah I have no issues with this. Power in California is stupid expensive and we are going back to rolling blackouts to shed load to keep the grid stable.

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#509

Post by Retric »

willis936 wrote: post #459
ncmncm wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be no useful fusion power produced on Earth in this century, at least in a Tokamak. Tokamak fusion is a jobs program for high neutron flux physicists, to maintain a population to draw on for weapons work. It does not need to produce other results.

The first part is very likely wrong. Fusion won’t be a major grid player in this century and by extension may be “too late” for meaningful climate change. However, we may be more fucked than people think. Seasonal energy storage (10^14 Wh scale) has no solutions. Where are the low carbon alternatives to base load power production? The second part is entirely wrong. That only applies to IEF programs in the US. NIF is…

There is zero need for seasonal storage. Solar is insanely cheap, just build excess capacity. If on average 50% of annual solar generation was wasted, that bumps it up to ~4c/kWh. Assuming 40% of your energy needs comes from battery‘s that adds 10c/kWh * 40%. So your total 24/7 365 grid energy including peaking power averages to just 8c/kWh which is vastly less than nuclear.

Further that’s optimistic from nuclear’s perspective, hydro and wind power significantly reduce the needs for battery storage.

Re: Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?

#510

Post by dv_dt »

manfredo wrote: post #208
dv_dt wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the answer always reply with coal and oil instead of Renewables and storage?

Because we need truly fantastic levels of storage to make renewables even remotely feasible. The US has 8 seconds of battery storage, and ~4 minutes of hydroelectric storage. We need 12 hours of storage to get to 80% renewable generation, and 3 weeks of storage to get to 100% renewable generation [1]. And even if we did go this route, we'd still need to cover 3-5% of the landmass of the Earth with solar panels to ach…

There have been many studies since 2018 that say areas where they previously thought it would be difficult to get to 80%, that would be perfectly feasible to get to 100% with near term technologies. See Austrailian grid analysis. The key difference is that the prices for both renewables and storage are far ahead of cost reduction estimates in previous forcasts.
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