Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest • Hacker News Board

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

#601

Post by valuearb » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 2:27 AM UTC

oelmekki wrote: post #354

payne92 wrote: post #13

I believe the politicization of nuclear energy (the resulting lack of investment & innovation) will go down as one of the major blunders in human history. We'd be in a far, far better situation with greenhouse gasses if we (as a human race) had continued to invest in nuclear energy. There would have been mishaps along the way, but at a much smaller scale than we're experiencing now with deaths from air pollution and…

This is a debate we have all the time, here in France, where we chose nuclear energy as main source of energy for several decades. Nowadays, everybody but lobbyists (because for those reasons, nuclear industry is strong, here) seems to agree renewable is the way to go (but we're far to be able to replace nuclear with renewable), mainly because: * we don't know what to do with nuclear wastes, and we start to have a lo…

Nuclear is renewable.

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

#602

Post by Retric » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 2:28 AM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #598

Retric wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>never used commercial power reactors to produce plutonium That's not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Valley_Demonstration_Proj...

How did west valley produce power? Your link is unclear.

No, it simply reprocessed spent nuclear fuel. It was not economically useful to do so, but we only really learned that by trying.

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

#603

Post by xcryogenicx » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 2:29 AM UTC

btilly wrote: post #542

xcryogenicx wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just see 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl. The fact that you would reference TMI in reference to dirty bombs is extremely telling in that you have no idea what you're talking about. The average radiation exposure outside TMI compound was less that an airplane flight or x-ray. Bananas are literally more dangerous.

That is disputed. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Rel... for claims from critics that official accounts of the exposure were low by a factor of 100 to 1000. Regardless of which version of the facts you consider more believable, the public was scared witless of the possibility that there was an exposure. As a result millions of people were left with the concern that they could get cancer d…

> That is disputed. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Rel.... for claims from critics that official accounts of the exposure were low by a factor of 100 to 1000.

> Regardless of which version of the facts you consider more believable,

Believable has nothing to do with it. An average dose of worst case 1000 times higher, 1.4 REM, doesn't even violate the US federal annual dose limits. Attempting to equivocate this with dirty bombs is either ignorant or a malicious, inflammatory lie to generate fear for an ulterior motive. If you're trying to insinuate some kind of cover-up, the did a pretty terrible job because no new reactors came online after TMI for like 50 years.

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

#604

Post by Mz » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 2:56 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #591

mSparks43 wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you balance the two? From my experience "most" industry is ~10-20 years behind research. That's how long it takes to work out the kinks, be that mobile phones, cloud computing or AI. So while the US and Europe mess around spending stupid money on ITER the Chinese will be rolling out molton salt reactors leaving the west behind, and that 'sucks'. But these are big projects, running them like a Turkish ticket…

So there are certain aspects that can be be iterated upon faster than others. Something like shielding is going to be faster, and can be iterated upon, compared to something like the main reactor. That may also be because that's what I'm more familiar with. I am also in favor of more small reactors, vs fewer large reactors. I think this provides a higher safety level and ease of upgrading. Plus you can just bury thes…

So, I was with you right up until you got back on your hobby horse of insisting that other people on HN are merely stupid idiots with unfounded opinions and this is the only reason they might disagree with you:

The questions get brushed off because most of the public is still afraid of the technology (see this thread. I doubt many of HN users has worked anywhere related to this field, but look at how many have strong opinions).

This is not a good basis from which to make an argument and it actively undermines the process of effective public discourse.

I am trying to be helpful here. I am sure you won't see it that way because it is public and it is critical of your remarks and that won't feel very good. But, maybe you could be the one in a million people who decides to use that fact as evidence of the truth in my statements that attacking other people doesn't strengthen your argument instead of being one of the other 999,999 people who just insist what I say is irrelevant because it hurt your feelings, while failing to see the irony there.

Best.

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

#605

Post by nickbauman » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 3:14 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #358

nickbauman wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recalcitrant problem of nuclear waste storage is now a permanent part of human history going forward even if not one single nuke plant is ever onlined again. So the dangers of nukes are here to stay no matter what. Making a new nuke plant or not will not change this problem. One could even argue that if we continue developing nuke plants we'll get better at dealing with the waste. If we don't we'll get worse. Hav…

Breeder reactors mostly fix the waste problem. Even without breeders, you should think hard about the tradeoff of having a fairly limited amount of solid stuff that you have to take care of for a very long time versus altering the climate of the whole planet and potentially messing up phytoplankton for a very long time, all while also causing all kinds of pollution.

Seems like a "grass is greener" case. The people of Fukushima Prefecture wish they could trade their nuke waste problem for a few dozen feet of sea level. I know I would if I were them.

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

#606

Post by Animats » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 3:47 AM UTC

guscost wrote: post #571

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…

Do you have a source about Fukushima containment failures? I've not heard any confirmation that primary or secondary containment structures failed at any point during or after the meltdown. The latest reports seem to indicate that primary containment is intact at all three reactors. As usual, you have to read between the lines - these editors always seem to hate nuclear power, or love fear and chaos, or both: https:/…

If the containment had held, there would have been no radiation release outside the plant.

Moderately detailed description: [1]

More detail: [2]

[1] https://www.livescience.com/13271-containment-breach-fukushi...

[2] http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-...

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

#607

Post by e12e » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 5:24 AM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #599

e12e wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit different when you use it for terrorbombing not one, but two cities - to make sure the design works. I guess you could argue that GPS has killed as many children now, by way of guided missiles and missiles fired by drones - but there's still a gulf between unleashing terror on a divine scale as a part of a publicity stunt and geopolitical maneuvering, to making warfare incrementally more efficient.

Given Hiroshima and Nagasaki likely saved at least a million Japanese lives, your point is unclear.

That is assuming Hiroshima and Nagasaki sped up the process of surrender (and probably assuming that most of that million of lives would have been lost to firebombing civilian targets). I don't think the point is unclear - but it could very well be wrong.

I don't think alternate-history fables is much of a defense for war crimes, however.

You might hold that bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was done to speed up Japan's surrender, and/or that they did speed up Japan's surrender by a meaningful amount. Further, you might argue that somehow two bombs was meaningfully better than one for this purpose.

From historical record, I'd say it's more likely Japan would've surrendered quickly either way - and that the motivation was more on establishing the USA as a superpower for the post-war era.

Either way, I think it's hard to argue that dropping of nuclear bombs on cities was done "for the sake of their people". After all, no-one was forcing the US to continue the war in the Pacific - or to capture Japan. The US could have sought a cease-fire and withdrawn to Hawaii or similar earlier borders. If the goal was to "save lives".

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

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Post by lispm » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 5:41 AM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #577

lispm wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another example is North Korea: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/dprk/taechon.htm

The second paragraph concludes the reactor was built for nuclear weapons development, I don't see how it can be considered "another example."

It's another example of a reactor designed to produce electricity and plutionium. North Korea a;so operated a smaller 5 MWe reactor creating electricity for a town and plutonium for their weapons program.

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

#609

Post by hueving » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 5:56 AM UTC

beat wrote: post #274

hueving wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and then sneer at those with doubts as ignorant and emotional rather than logical That's because you reply with things like this. >sounds like something a supervillain would say.

When you tell me something "completely eliminates" the possibility of failure in complex industrial design - you're being emotional rather than logical. Look, I'm actually pro-nuclear. But I think the arguments made for nuclear power are mostly awful, driven by techno-fetishism and wishful thinking rather than real logic. The "But I'm logical and you're just emotional!" argument is itself an emotional argument, a rus…

>I didn't say your argument sounds like something a supervillain would say because I think the technology is bad. I said it because I think the phrasing is bad. Wise up.

Not my argument, but the point is that comparing something to "what a supervillain" would say is an emotional, not logical, response. What supervillain introduces technologies that are immune to whole classes of failures?

>When you tell me something "completely eliminates" the possibility of failure in complex industrial design - you're being emotional rather than logical.

If someone proposes switching from coal powered plants to natural gas powered plants with the argument that it completely eliminates the possibility of coal dust as a byproduct, would you deride them as well?

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

#610

Post by jpindar » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 6:01 AM UTC

padseeker wrote: post #187

payne92 wrote: post #13

I believe the politicization of nuclear energy (the resulting lack of investment & innovation) will go down as one of the major blunders in human history. We'd be in a far, far better situation with greenhouse gasses if we (as a human race) had continued to invest in nuclear energy. There would have been mishaps along the way, but at a much smaller scale than we're experiencing now with deaths from air pollution and…

What do you mean "politicization"? Please saw the movie the China syndrome and then 3 mile island happened. Then people were very afraid. These were real possibilities. Does anyone want to live near a nuclear power plant? Do you? I sure as hell would not. How can you twist fear of a disaster in "politicization"? You are also looking thru the lens of our current situation. Very little was being discussed about the ris…

Based on nearby real estate prices, people don't mind living near nuclear power plants. There are $500K houses with a lovely view of Seabrook Station.