71–80 of 106 posts
Some of the wording in this article is confusing. "The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday ordered ¥1 million in additional damages be paid each to some 300 evacuees from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, down by two-thirds from the amount awarded by a lower court ruling." "Additional damages" vs "down by two-thirds" If it's down by two-thirds, it's not additional, its a reduction.
Not even 10,000 USD. A bit underwhelming even at the original award amount (3m Yen, ~27,600 USD).
> ...on top of the ¥8.5 million it paid per person based on estimates calculated under government-set interim standards. So ¥9.5 million, or ~$88,000 total
I don't know enough about the ¥8.5 million calculation, and what damages it is meant to cover, to conclude whether it is a reasonable sum or not.
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The Navy has the advantage that they don’t have the same cost pressure a civilian reactor has. I am pretty sure their MW/$ cost is much higher than would be acceptable for a nuclear power plant.
Which is why commercial reactors cannot exist. The MW/$ delta between a military and commercial reactor is the risk premium for safe operation.
No, it isn't, since we also have many, many civilian reactors that have operated for decades safely.
What's more, even if we take into account all of the harm done by all the nuclear accidents that have ever happened, including Chernobyl and Fukushima, the harm done by nuclear energy per unit of energy generated is still orders of magnitude less than the harm done by fossil fuel energy per unit of energy generated. And that is only actual harm that has already occurred--it doesn't take into account potential future harms (such as climate change--I personally don't think that's a very significant component of the harm done by fossil fuels, but I'm not arguing that point here, because what I've said is true even if any such potential harm is ignored--any potential future harm to the climate from fossil fuels just makes them look even worse than they already do).
The price premium paid by the military for nuclear power is for operational flexibility, not safe operation. The Navy's capital ships need to be able to steam anywhere in the world without having to worry about fuel. The Navy's submarines need to be able to operate submerged and undetectable for months at a time. Nuclear power is a necessary enabler for those operational capabilities, so the Navy simply can't tolerate any deviation from proper procedures since it would jeopardize those capabilities. The fact that this approach also leads to much increased reactor safety is a benefit, to be sure (and in the early days of Navy nuclear power, when much less was known about reactor safety than is known now, this benefit was indeed a key selling point for allowing the Navy to operate nuclear ships and subs), but it's not the primary purpose. If the greatly increased operational capability had not been there, the Navy wouldn't have bothered with nuclear power in the first place.
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Sure it was. Why would the soviets have build it if not for profit?
To produce electricity as part of a state-planned economy. It turns out governments are just as capable of cutting corners and making poor decisions like having a positive void coefficient, combined control/catalyst rods, and a lack of secondary containment.
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The Navy has the advantage that they don’t have the same cost pressure a civilian reactor has. I am pretty sure their MW/$ cost is much higher than would be acceptable for a nuclear power plant.
I suspect size requirements have relatively much more influence over the design and construction of naval reactors.
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Actually, when the alternative is fossil fuels (and it frequently is), you only have to understand that, even if your nuclear reactor goes kaboom, it will still kill less people than your fossil fuel plant that does not blow up. And please don't give me "we should all use less energy." Even if we should all use less energy, it's still better to generate this less energy from nuclear, as long as we're using fossil fue…
This isn't really the criticism that the OP is making. Coal may kill more people, but it doesn't irradiate the surrounding area for hundreds of years if something goes wrong. Personally, I agree that nuclear is probably not anti-fragile enough to be a widespread solution. Political instability is the norm, not the rarity, throughout history.
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Actually, when the alternative is fossil fuels (and it frequently is), you only have to understand that, even if your nuclear reactor goes kaboom, it will still kill less people than your fossil fuel plant that does not blow up. And please don't give me "we should all use less energy." Even if we should all use less energy, it's still better to generate this less energy from nuclear, as long as we're using fossil fue…
This isn't really the criticism that the OP is making. Coal may kill more people, but it doesn't irradiate the surrounding area for hundreds of years if something goes wrong. Personally, I agree that nuclear is probably not anti-fragile enough to be a widespread solution. Political instability is the norm, not the rarity, throughout history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing_and_radio...
If the energy industry had to follow the regulations of the nuclear industry - we'd be back in the stone age. Nuclear is the only way we can reach our co2 targets in time. I think renewables and nuclear need to be implemented at the same time.
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A person with an AK-47 and TNT can't render vast tracts of land uninhabitable for decades in the way that nuclear waste can. I am very pro-nuclear in the US (and the EU etc.), but I think the concern about nuclear in potentially unstable nations is absolutely valid.
The Chernobyl exclusion zone is 1000sqmi (32mi by 32mi). That's not so vast if it's in low populated area.
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This isn't really the criticism that the OP is making. Coal may kill more people, but it doesn't irradiate the surrounding area for hundreds of years if something goes wrong. Personally, I agree that nuclear is probably not anti-fragile enough to be a widespread solution. Political instability is the norm, not the rarity, throughout history.
Coal power plants produce hazardous byproducts called "coal ash". [1] The US generates 200 million tons of this highly toxic sludge and most of it just gets dumped in a landfill, contaminating the area for decades. [2] Nuclear is far cleaner, even if the byproduct is radioactive. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_coal_ash 2. https://www.sierraclub.org/wisconsin/coal-ash-pollution
I'm not sure that point is a very strong one.
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Coal power plants produce hazardous byproducts called "coal ash". [1] The US generates 200 million tons of this highly toxic sludge and most of it just gets dumped in a landfill, contaminating the area for decades. [2] Nuclear is far cleaner, even if the byproduct is radioactive. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_coal_ash 2. https://www.sierraclub.org/wisconsin/coal-ash-pollution
I'm not anti-nuclear, but would you agree that solving the coal waste is an easier problem to solve than the nuclear waste one? I'm not sure that point is a very strong one.