5 ms·

This times one hundred. Nuclear in the West is far more expensive than places like China and Vietnam not because western plants are better or safer but because

This times one hundred. Nuclear in the West is far more expensive than places like China and Vietnam not because western plants are better or safer but because they face incredible legal and regulatory hurdles designed to appease people's irrational fears.

chefkoch 11y ago
Shure, China is atm mostly using a more than 30 year old design bought from france and everyone knows safety is not their primary concern. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China#Reactor_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China#Reactor...
- merpnderp 11y ago
  Yes, that French design that has such a horrible safety record in France. Oh wait, it has an excellent record and France is still exporting power from those designs. And I don't think everyone knows that safety is not their primary concern. What other country shoots CEO's in the head when they put citizens at risk with poisoned products or environmental disasters?
  - chefkoch 11y ago
    Wie already know the flaws of this design, that's why there are newer safer designs like the epr are build or planned in the west. You can drive around in a 30 year old car without problem, but most people would prefer the safety standards oft today. And chinas track record in other parts of the energy business show that shooting that one CEO isn't that big of a help. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mining_accidents_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mining_accident...
    - merpnderp 11y ago
      The problem is probably the newer designs don't have as many successful rollouts. And when spending 10 years and billions, predictability is important. But after Googling around, I do see France has some non-trivial issues with Chinese safety issues.
  - chefkoch 11y ago
    Wie already know the flaws of this design, that's why there are newer safer designs like the epr are build or planned in the west. You can drive around in a 30 year old car without problem, but most people would prefer the safety standards oft today. And chinas track record in other parts of the energy business show that shooting that one CEO isn't that big of a help. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mining_accidents_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mining_accident...
olau 11y ago
I call bullshit on that. Nuclear safety is not to be taken lightly. The reason we haven't had more disasters than we've currently had is precisely because people working in the field take this stuff deeply seriously. And they need to. What's killing nuclear isn't environmentalists, it's that this stuff is hard, really hard, and it's getting harder over time as more failure scenarios are known.
- hguant 11y ago
  We haven't really had any disasters, compared to the damage coal and oil do to our environment, and also compared to the semi-regular industrial accidents that happen in the coal/oil industry. Three Mile Island - how many fatalities? Fukushima - who died? Chernobyl - there should be a Godwin's law about this. Meanwhile, life expectancy is down, coal fired plants are quite literally poisoning our atmosphere, and oil explosions and accidents kill more people in a decade than nuclear power has over its existence (nuclear power, not nuclear weaponry. Though that's an interesting question - how many people were killed in fire bombings or by fuel-air weapons vs by nukes?)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- pdonis 11y ago
  > Nuclear safety is not to be taken lightly. Safety in general is not to be taken lightly. But we should assess the relative safety of different technologies fairly. We don't do that with nuclear; we hold it to standards far higher than the ones we enforce for other technologies, even though those other technologies have killed orders of magnitude more people. That is not rational. > this stuff is hard, really hard, and it's getting harder over time as more failure scenarios are known. This could be said of any technology. But again, we hold nuclear to far higher standards than we do other technologies that have failure scenarios which have already killed orders of magnitude more people.

chefkoch 11y ago

Shure, China is atm mostly using a more than 30 year old design bought from france and everyone knows safety is not their primary concern. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China#Reactor_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China#Reactor...

merpnderp 11y ago
Yes, that French design that has such a horrible safety record in France. Oh wait, it has an excellent record and France is still exporting power from those designs. And I don't think everyone knows that safety is not their primary concern. What other country shoots CEO's in the head when they put citizens at risk with poisoned products or environmental disasters?
- chefkoch 11y ago
  Wie already know the flaws of this design, that's why there are newer safer designs like the epr are build or planned in the west. You can drive around in a 30 year old car without problem, but most people would prefer the safety standards oft today. And chinas track record in other parts of the energy business show that shooting that one CEO isn't that big of a help. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mining_accidents_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mining_accident...
  - merpnderp 11y ago
    The problem is probably the newer designs don't have as many successful rollouts. And when spending 10 years and billions, predictability is important. But after Googling around, I do see France has some non-trivial issues with Chinese safety issues.
- chefkoch 11y ago
  Wie already know the flaws of this design, that's why there are newer safer designs like the epr are build or planned in the west. You can drive around in a 30 year old car without problem, but most people would prefer the safety standards oft today. And chinas track record in other parts of the energy business show that shooting that one CEO isn't that big of a help. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mining_accidents_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mining_accident...

olau 11y ago

I call bullshit on that. Nuclear safety is not to be taken lightly. The reason we haven't had more disasters than we've currently had is precisely because people working in the field take this stuff deeply seriously. And they need to. What's killing nuclear isn't environmentalists, it's that this stuff is hard, really hard, and it's getting harder over time as more failure scenarios are known.

hguant 11y ago
We haven't really had any disasters, compared to the damage coal and oil do to our environment, and also compared to the semi-regular industrial accidents that happen in the coal/oil industry. Three Mile Island - how many fatalities? Fukushima - who died? Chernobyl - there should be a Godwin's law about this. Meanwhile, life expectancy is down, coal fired plants are quite literally poisoning our atmosphere, and oil explosions and accidents kill more people in a decade than nuclear power has over its existence (nuclear power, not nuclear weaponry. Though that's an interesting question - how many people were killed in fire bombings or by fuel-air weapons vs by nukes?)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
pdonis 11y ago
> Nuclear safety is not to be taken lightly. Safety in general is not to be taken lightly. But we should assess the relative safety of different technologies fairly. We don't do that with nuclear; we hold it to standards far higher than the ones we enforce for other technologies, even though those other technologies have killed orders of magnitude more people. That is not rational. > this stuff is hard, really hard, and it's getting harder over time as more failure scenarios are known. This could be said of any technology. But again, we hold nuclear to far higher standards than we do other technologies that have failure scenarios which have already killed orders of magnitude more people.