9 ms·

So let me get this straight: 1. It's a given that somehow, somewhere, a nuke is going to get away from humanity. I'm honestly optimistic that it'll just be a r

by sounds 10y ago

So let me get this straight: 1. It's a given that somehow, somewhere, a nuke is going to get away from humanity. I'm honestly optimistic that it'll just be a reactor problem, and that we -- humanity -- learn every time one happens. (Because engineers are a careful lot.) Then the environmental damage will be less than Fukushima. 2. Solar + A Storage Miracle (that much storage would be a certifiable wonder of the world) is competitive to nuclear on the following axes: risk, cost, and ability to regulate to match demand. Because I don't think that's true. Happy to be proven wrong, but the problem appears to be political, only. Once a small reactor, or a country hungry enough (China) succeeds with nuclear, US politics will catch up. They always do. tl;dr: I'm long on nuclear.

wallace_f 10y ago
> Once a country hungry enough (China) succeeds with nuclear, US politics will catch up. They always do. At least one journalist believes we are already trailing behind China, and have been for a while now[1] 1 - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8393984/Safe-nuclear-does-exist-and-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_prit...
- petre 10y ago
  China licensed almost evey nuclear reactor design out there and sent its finest nuclear scientists to study in the West. They are going to copy every design and build new ones. India already has a working research Thorium reactor based on their modified version of CANDU (the Canadians pulled out when India made its first nuke).
nandemo 10y ago
I think the issue is moot because the real danger isn't a nuclear reactor accident, it's a nuclear weapon detonation -- especially if it's from an nuclear power to another. I think worrying about global warming is rather optimistic.
sanxiyn 10y ago
From 2012 to 2016 (5 years), China connected 20 GW (20863 MW to be exact) nuclear power capacity to grid. You can check yourself at IAEA Power Reactor Information System: https://www.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails.aspx?current=CN https://www.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails.a...
paulddraper 10y ago
> Once a small reactor, or a country hungry enough (China) succeeds with nuclear France has been succeeding for quite some time. The majority of their power comes from nuclear.
- beders 10y ago
  Unless you live 15 miles away from it. There's no succeeding with nuclear.
- bad_user 10y ago
  Ironic that after Germany shut down some nuclear plants they had, they started importing more energy from France, which has nuclear power plants near the borders with Germany.
  - ketralnis 10y ago
    If you believe that most of the cost is in disposing of waste and cleaning up a disaster, outsourcing that sounds like win/win
    - coldtea 10y ago
      Yes, let's lower the cost of disposing of waste - with whatever means necessary, dump it into lakes if needed.
  - sqeezy 10y ago
    actually you are wrong. germany is exporting way more as they are importing http://phasenpruefer.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Handelsbilanz-Strom-in-Terawattstunden.png http://phasenpruefer.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Handels...
    - grzm 10y ago
      The image is from the German-language article "Stromexport Deutschlands erreicht immer neue Rekorde (aktualisiert)", 7 October 2015. http://phasenpruefer.info/deutschlands-stromexporte-bricht-rekorde/ http://phasenpruefer.info/deutschlands-stromexporte-bricht-r... English title courtesy of Google Translate: "Germany's electricity exports are constantly growing (updated)".
mcv 10y ago
I think what Fukushima taught us, is that profit-driven companies will always be looking for ways to cut costs. Nuclear, like oil, requires extremely tight regulation to keep the companies involved from cutting corners and creating unreasonable safety problems. Also, doesn't nuclear also still have a storage problem? Storing electricity is mostly a solved issue: batteries. We just need to do it cheaper and on a larger scale. And it doesn't even have to be centralized: a Tesla Powerwall in every home will also solve the problem. I think it's a bad idea to take perfectly working nuclear power plants offline, but it's really only a temporary solution during the transition towards full solar.
- mcjiggerlog 10y ago
  I'd like to know why you think that is what Fukishima taught us? A giant earthquake AND a tsunami hits the plant and not a single person is killed... For me it reinforced the fact that nuclear energy is one of the most tightly regulated industries in the world in terms of safety.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    This comment taught me that 100,000 people still unable to return to their homes five years later is no big deal... And if you actually believe that "not a single person killed" bullshit, I got a bridge to sell you. Death from cancer is still death, even if it takes a year or two.
    - GVIrish 10y ago
      I think parent post is downplaying things a bit, but I'd take the risk of 100k people bring displaced by a nuclear accident over 100's of millions of people being displaced by climate change.
      - mcv 10y ago
        I totally agree. But when we have the option to not displace anyone, I prefer that. Nuclear technology is to me at best a transitional technology to fill the gap until solar is ready to take over. And it seems solar kind of is already. I'm not arguing for taking nuclear reactors offline, but it's not clear to me why we should build new ones if solar is cheaper and cleaner. Of course large scale electricity storage is still an issue for solar, and I can understand solar isn't the best option for cloudy countries, but I do think it's important to look beyond nuclear.
pasta 10y ago
Well even if reactors are very safe, there is still a huge problem with maintenance costs. Belgium for example has some old reactors. There are micro cracks appearing but because this is still not an issue they keep the oldest reactor open for another 10 years. But what if there will be a point in time when Belgium doesn't have the funds to maintain this reactor?
zanny 10y ago
I thought hydroelectric was our storage miracle? You invest solar into pumping up the reservoir and drain it at night to spin turbines. The problem is that the costs to build such power stores demands broad adoption of solar to justify the investment to build these hydroelectric systems. Their efficiencies are awful on the small scale. But people cannot adopt solar until stable power can be had. It will require state intervention and forward thinking to subsidize some of these projects to get broad solar buildup off the ground.

by sounds 10y ago

wallace_f 10y ago

> Once a country hungry enough (China) succeeds with nuclear, US politics will catch up. They always do. At least one journalist believes we are already trailing behind China, and have been for a while now[1] 1 - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8393984/Safe-nuclear-does-exist-and-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_prit...

petre 10y ago
China licensed almost evey nuclear reactor design out there and sent its finest nuclear scientists to study in the West. They are going to copy every design and build new ones. India already has a working research Thorium reactor based on their modified version of CANDU (the Canadians pulled out when India made its first nuke).

nandemo 10y ago

I think the issue is moot because the real danger isn't a nuclear reactor accident, it's a nuclear weapon detonation -- especially if it's from an nuclear power to another. I think worrying about global warming is rather optimistic.

sanxiyn 10y ago

From 2012 to 2016 (5 years), China connected 20 GW (20863 MW to be exact) nuclear power capacity to grid. You can check yourself at IAEA Power Reactor Information System: https://www.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails.aspx?current=CN https://www.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails.a...

paulddraper 10y ago

> Once a small reactor, or a country hungry enough (China) succeeds with nuclear France has been succeeding for quite some time. The majority of their power comes from nuclear.

beders 10y ago
Unless you live 15 miles away from it. There's no succeeding with nuclear.
bad_user 10y ago
Ironic that after Germany shut down some nuclear plants they had, they started importing more energy from France, which has nuclear power plants near the borders with Germany.
- ketralnis 10y ago
  If you believe that most of the cost is in disposing of waste and cleaning up a disaster, outsourcing that sounds like win/win
  - coldtea 10y ago
    Yes, let's lower the cost of disposing of waste - with whatever means necessary, dump it into lakes if needed.
- sqeezy 10y ago
  actually you are wrong. germany is exporting way more as they are importing http://phasenpruefer.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Handelsbilanz-Strom-in-Terawattstunden.png http://phasenpruefer.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Handels...
  - grzm 10y ago
    The image is from the German-language article "Stromexport Deutschlands erreicht immer neue Rekorde (aktualisiert)", 7 October 2015. http://phasenpruefer.info/deutschlands-stromexporte-bricht-rekorde/ http://phasenpruefer.info/deutschlands-stromexporte-bricht-r... English title courtesy of Google Translate: "Germany's electricity exports are constantly growing (updated)".

mcv 10y ago

I think what Fukushima taught us, is that profit-driven companies will always be looking for ways to cut costs. Nuclear, like oil, requires extremely tight regulation to keep the companies involved from cutting corners and creating unreasonable safety problems. Also, doesn't nuclear also still have a storage problem? Storing electricity is mostly a solved issue: batteries. We just need to do it cheaper and on a larger scale. And it doesn't even have to be centralized: a Tesla Powerwall in every home will also solve the problem. I think it's a bad idea to take perfectly working nuclear power plants offline, but it's really only a temporary solution during the transition towards full solar.

mcjiggerlog 10y ago
I'd like to know why you think that is what Fukishima taught us? A giant earthquake AND a tsunami hits the plant and not a single person is killed... For me it reinforced the fact that nuclear energy is one of the most tightly regulated industries in the world in terms of safety.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  This comment taught me that 100,000 people still unable to return to their homes five years later is no big deal... And if you actually believe that "not a single person killed" bullshit, I got a bridge to sell you. Death from cancer is still death, even if it takes a year or two.
  - GVIrish 10y ago
    I think parent post is downplaying things a bit, but I'd take the risk of 100k people bring displaced by a nuclear accident over 100's of millions of people being displaced by climate change.
    - mcv 10y ago
      I totally agree. But when we have the option to not displace anyone, I prefer that. Nuclear technology is to me at best a transitional technology to fill the gap until solar is ready to take over. And it seems solar kind of is already. I'm not arguing for taking nuclear reactors offline, but it's not clear to me why we should build new ones if solar is cheaper and cleaner. Of course large scale electricity storage is still an issue for solar, and I can understand solar isn't the best option for cloudy countries, but I do think it's important to look beyond nuclear.

pasta 10y ago

Well even if reactors are very safe, there is still a huge problem with maintenance costs. Belgium for example has some old reactors. There are micro cracks appearing but because this is still not an issue they keep the oldest reactor open for another 10 years. But what if there will be a point in time when Belgium doesn't have the funds to maintain this reactor?

zanny 10y ago

I thought hydroelectric was our storage miracle? You invest solar into pumping up the reservoir and drain it at night to spin turbines. The problem is that the costs to build such power stores demands broad adoption of solar to justify the investment to build these hydroelectric systems. Their efficiencies are awful on the small scale. But people cannot adopt solar until stable power can be had. It will require state intervention and forward thinking to subsidize some of these projects to get broad solar buildup off the ground.