5 ms·

In 30 years, solar will have taken over. Using safe existing nuclear power plants is OK for me, building new ones seems stupid. For some countries, replacing an

In 30 years, solar will have taken over. Using safe existing nuclear power plants is OK for me, building new ones seems stupid. For some countries, replacing an old unsafe one with a good new one seems plausible, but more seems a bad choice.

mseebach 10y ago
Perhaps the train has indeed left the platform, but the inflection point for solar only happened this year. If the parties to Kyoto had gone home back then and created said regulatory environment for nuclear and gotten on with it, we'd be looking at a 80-90% carbon emissions free electrical grid across the entire western hemisphere today. Climate change would have been more or less solved, and yes, we knew that then, this is not benefit-of-hindsight stuff. There's a lot of histrionics around putting oil companies in the dock for crimes against humanity, but anyone who's campaigned against nuclear in the last 30 years can go right up and sit next to them.
- hubert123 10y ago
  I prefer not having fukushima events and I'm happy to wait and use coal in the meantime
  - Analog24 10y ago
    The Fukushima reactor was old and outdated. Modern reactors are built with passive safety systems that essentially make it impossible for a Fukushima style meltdown to occur. Ignorance and coal are not the answer.
    - natch 10y ago
      There's still the centralization problem. Nuclear power is centralized and lends itself to government or corporate control of the energy system, in contrast with solar which gives each property owner individual control. I'm not saying we can't have both, it's just that the problems with nuclear are not only (perceived or real) safety problems and the fact that it yields byproducts the most tempting use of which is to make nuclear weapons.
      - Analog24 10y ago
        I agree with you. There are undoubtedly issues with nuclear power but the possibility of a Fukushima/Chernobyl meltdown happening in your backyard is not one of them. The main downside is that this understandable but unfounded fear get in the way of politicians having a meaningful discussions about the real issues of nuclear, such as the one you mentioned.
      - hxegon 10y ago
        > Nuclear power is centralized and lends itself to government or corporate control of the energy system As opposed to what we have now?
        natch 10y ago
        As opposed to alternatives like solar. Admittedly solar does not work everywhere, but there are transport mechanisms, and batteries, and it does work in some places. And we have to decide where to spend our money. Spending on solar is a choice that leads to more local control and less centralized control, as compared to spending on nuclear. And it's not necessarily totally one or the other in every situation. I'm just saying I have a preference for things that favor local control.
        paulmd 10y ago
        If you are talking about grid-scale transport and storage mechanisms that move power in from "someplace [else]" we are back to a centralized power system. Moreover, you still have yet to make a case for why a decentralized system is inherently good. There's a strong argument for centralized systems where they are feasible, and that's that centralized systems are easy and decentralized systems are hard. We all know this from our own experience - it's easiest to use a Single Big Server if you can get away with it, it's tougher to use a cluster of systems coherently (CAP theorem comes into play), and as you continue to decentralize further and further you eventually need something like a blockchain to have any hope of consistency, latency becomes measured in minutes, etc. Distributed systems are hard and we don't want to make the power grid any more complex than it needs to be. A few big centralized power sources are greatly preferable to many decentralized power sources from an engineering perspective, although perhaps not from your political perspective.
    - dv_dt 10y ago
      That's another problem with Nuclear. After investing a large capital stake into a nuclear plant, the operators are unwilling to make hard decisions on safety because of how deeply they're invested. The Fukushima reactor design was "safe" for the time it was built, and flaws were found afterwards, yet the plant wasn't taken offline. Modern passive safety systems are safe as far as the designers can anticipate, just like Fukushima, and there is a lot which can go wrong.
  - richmarr 10y ago
    You have to think about the trade-offs... even Chernobyl only caused 56 direct deaths and a five-fold increase in the incidence of normal rate of thyroid cancer (a fairly treatable form of cancer) amongst the 18m children exposed. I say "only" there not to diminish their suffering (it's a terrible thing happening to a huge number of people) but because the consequences of continuing to rely on coal are orders of magnitude worse.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    And I'd prefer my eventual children grow up on a planet capable of supporting complex life indefinitely.
  - thescriptkiddie 10y ago
    A coal power plant that is operating normally kills and injures more people, and releases vastly more radioactive particulates into the air, than the Fukushima disaster did.
rvail2 10y ago
"In 30 years" lol, at least the amount of time claimed for the solution is becoming more realistic. 20 years ago, people claimed solar was going to take over in "10 years".
- afterburner 10y ago
  You completely misunderstood me. I'm saying nuclear isn't going to get much better on the next thirty years, while solar has been and is already better, and is getting even better every year. Nuclear costs have been understated since they came out.
  - drawnwren 10y ago
    This is all predicated on fusion not panning out, correct? I'd also be very surprised to see that there have been no advances that made nuclear more efficient or safe in the last 30 years.
saint_fiasco 10y ago
Existing nuclear power plants are old designs, much less safe than a new one would be.
- natch 10y ago
  New ones will be just as centralized as old ones. Less democratic, more control of your energy in the hands of a big player, as compared to solar.
- Chathamization 10y ago
  Every design will be old after a few decades. If, when these old designs were being built, people were saying "they're not so safe, but in a few decades we'll have a much safer design" and are now saying that we have a safer design, then, it seems reliable. However, if people were saying a few decades ago, "These new designs are much safer than the old ones" and are now saying "Well, THESE new designs are much safer than the old ones" and in a few decades when these designs are old will be saying, "But really, THESE NEW designs are much safer than those old ones" than it's not surprising that there's so much fear and uncertainty from the general public. Most people aren't experts in nuclear plant design and regulations. They rely on authorities, but when accidents that aren't supposed to happen end up happening, they (rightfully) start to distrust the ability of the authorities to provide them with proper risk assessment. If you tell someone that one Fukushima type disaster will happen every 30 years and that occurs, then they can at least judge the risk and decide whether or not it's worth it. If you tell someone there's little chance of that kind of disaster and then it happens, they're naturally going to be skeptical of your later pronouncements that "Of course that happened to THAT plant, but now there's REALLY little chance of that happening." People might make a bad decision because of this, but the concern isn't irrational.
  - saint_fiasco 10y ago
    I'm not talking about frequency of disasters but rather their severity. It's not that one Fukushima-type disaster every 30 years is much better than one every 50 years, but that one Fukushima-type disaster is a lot better than one Chernobyl-type disaster. Fukushima type plants have Chernobyl type disasters approximately never. That part was not a lie. Supposedly new plant designs never have Fukushima type disasters.

mseebach 10y ago

Perhaps the train has indeed left the platform, but the inflection point for solar only happened this year. If the parties to Kyoto had gone home back then and created said regulatory environment for nuclear and gotten on with it, we'd be looking at a 80-90% carbon emissions free electrical grid across the entire western hemisphere today. Climate change would have been more or less solved, and yes, we knew that then, this is not benefit-of-hindsight stuff. There's a lot of histrionics around putting oil companies in the dock for crimes against humanity, but anyone who's campaigned against nuclear in the last 30 years can go right up and sit next to them.

hubert123 10y ago
I prefer not having fukushima events and I'm happy to wait and use coal in the meantime
- Analog24 10y ago
  The Fukushima reactor was old and outdated. Modern reactors are built with passive safety systems that essentially make it impossible for a Fukushima style meltdown to occur. Ignorance and coal are not the answer.
  - natch 10y ago
    There's still the centralization problem. Nuclear power is centralized and lends itself to government or corporate control of the energy system, in contrast with solar which gives each property owner individual control. I'm not saying we can't have both, it's just that the problems with nuclear are not only (perceived or real) safety problems and the fact that it yields byproducts the most tempting use of which is to make nuclear weapons.
    - Analog24 10y ago
      I agree with you. There are undoubtedly issues with nuclear power but the possibility of a Fukushima/Chernobyl meltdown happening in your backyard is not one of them. The main downside is that this understandable but unfounded fear get in the way of politicians having a meaningful discussions about the real issues of nuclear, such as the one you mentioned.
    - hxegon 10y ago
      > Nuclear power is centralized and lends itself to government or corporate control of the energy system As opposed to what we have now?
      - natch 10y ago
        As opposed to alternatives like solar. Admittedly solar does not work everywhere, but there are transport mechanisms, and batteries, and it does work in some places. And we have to decide where to spend our money. Spending on solar is a choice that leads to more local control and less centralized control, as compared to spending on nuclear. And it's not necessarily totally one or the other in every situation. I'm just saying I have a preference for things that favor local control.
        paulmd 10y ago
        If you are talking about grid-scale transport and storage mechanisms that move power in from "someplace [else]" we are back to a centralized power system. Moreover, you still have yet to make a case for why a decentralized system is inherently good. There's a strong argument for centralized systems where they are feasible, and that's that centralized systems are easy and decentralized systems are hard. We all know this from our own experience - it's easiest to use a Single Big Server if you can get away with it, it's tougher to use a cluster of systems coherently (CAP theorem comes into play), and as you continue to decentralize further and further you eventually need something like a blockchain to have any hope of consistency, latency becomes measured in minutes, etc. Distributed systems are hard and we don't want to make the power grid any more complex than it needs to be. A few big centralized power sources are greatly preferable to many decentralized power sources from an engineering perspective, although perhaps not from your political perspective.
  - dv_dt 10y ago
    That's another problem with Nuclear. After investing a large capital stake into a nuclear plant, the operators are unwilling to make hard decisions on safety because of how deeply they're invested. The Fukushima reactor design was "safe" for the time it was built, and flaws were found afterwards, yet the plant wasn't taken offline. Modern passive safety systems are safe as far as the designers can anticipate, just like Fukushima, and there is a lot which can go wrong.
- richmarr 10y ago
  You have to think about the trade-offs... even Chernobyl only caused 56 direct deaths and a five-fold increase in the incidence of normal rate of thyroid cancer (a fairly treatable form of cancer) amongst the 18m children exposed. I say "only" there not to diminish their suffering (it's a terrible thing happening to a huge number of people) but because the consequences of continuing to rely on coal are orders of magnitude worse.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  And I'd prefer my eventual children grow up on a planet capable of supporting complex life indefinitely.
- thescriptkiddie 10y ago
  A coal power plant that is operating normally kills and injures more people, and releases vastly more radioactive particulates into the air, than the Fukushima disaster did.

rvail2 10y ago

"In 30 years" lol, at least the amount of time claimed for the solution is becoming more realistic. 20 years ago, people claimed solar was going to take over in "10 years".

afterburner 10y ago
You completely misunderstood me. I'm saying nuclear isn't going to get much better on the next thirty years, while solar has been and is already better, and is getting even better every year. Nuclear costs have been understated since they came out.
- drawnwren 10y ago
  This is all predicated on fusion not panning out, correct? I'd also be very surprised to see that there have been no advances that made nuclear more efficient or safe in the last 30 years.

saint_fiasco 10y ago

Existing nuclear power plants are old designs, much less safe than a new one would be.

natch 10y ago
New ones will be just as centralized as old ones. Less democratic, more control of your energy in the hands of a big player, as compared to solar.
Chathamization 10y ago
Every design will be old after a few decades. If, when these old designs were being built, people were saying "they're not so safe, but in a few decades we'll have a much safer design" and are now saying that we have a safer design, then, it seems reliable. However, if people were saying a few decades ago, "These new designs are much safer than the old ones" and are now saying "Well, THESE new designs are much safer than the old ones" and in a few decades when these designs are old will be saying, "But really, THESE NEW designs are much safer than those old ones" than it's not surprising that there's so much fear and uncertainty from the general public. Most people aren't experts in nuclear plant design and regulations. They rely on authorities, but when accidents that aren't supposed to happen end up happening, they (rightfully) start to distrust the ability of the authorities to provide them with proper risk assessment. If you tell someone that one Fukushima type disaster will happen every 30 years and that occurs, then they can at least judge the risk and decide whether or not it's worth it. If you tell someone there's little chance of that kind of disaster and then it happens, they're naturally going to be skeptical of your later pronouncements that "Of course that happened to THAT plant, but now there's REALLY little chance of that happening." People might make a bad decision because of this, but the concern isn't irrational.
- saint_fiasco 10y ago
  I'm not talking about frequency of disasters but rather their severity. It's not that one Fukushima-type disaster every 30 years is much better than one every 50 years, but that one Fukushima-type disaster is a lot better than one Chernobyl-type disaster. Fukushima type plants have Chernobyl type disasters approximately never. That part was not a lie. Supposedly new plant designs never have Fukushima type disasters.