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In case it's not obvious this argument is a disingenuous appraisal of current nuclear energy as a power source. The important facts that are left unsaid are: w

In case it's not obvious this argument is a disingenuous appraisal of current nuclear energy as a power source. The important facts that are left unsaid are: when current nuclear goes bad it goes VERY bad indeed; the intermittent powers sources of wind and solar are much less intermittent in aggregate when their geographical dispersion is large enough; the costs of both solar and wind are declining rapidly while nuclear costs are not; widely distributed storage batteries will be come more common as their price continues to decrease and the grid will strengthen in proportion. Solar and wind have the added important advantage that capacity can be added incrementally whereas nuclear is one huge, wildly expensive project at a time. I'm not against nuclear in principle. The problem is not, as stated, the unreasonable condition that it has to be 100% safe. The problem is that the risks have to be reasonably limited when something does go wrong. Nuclear fails that requirement. If there was not a viable alternative to nuclear then sure, nuclear would be a necessity. As it is, nuclear's viability window has closed, at least for now.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
It's not a disingenuous appraisal; you're overblowing the safety issues. When nuclear fails, the bad isn't that bad. Fukushima impact was mostly from panic and unnecessary evacuations. Even Chernobyl wasn't that bad (compare to e.g. hydroelectric dam failures). As for solar power, I hope what you say is true; I still wonder what's their EROI and real carbon footprint, when you correct for the subsidies (which are fine as means to get solar running, but not fine for calculations of impact on climate and energy security).
- kbenson 10y ago
  > When nuclear fails, the bad isn't that bad. Fukushima impact was mostly from panic and unnecessary evacuations. Doesn't that imply to some degree that the "isn't that bad" is because we have people to stop it from going really bad when it goes bad? I can't help but feel what's missing from the assessment is the various levels of failures of each technology, how much intervention is required if any to keep it to that failure level, and how likely that failure level is. We're all talking about probability of outcomes but we still seem to be leaving out essential information.
cknight 10y ago
We also need to consider that even with the rapidly improving costs of renewbales, the dollars per GwH generated are still beyond nuclear, and require orders of magnitude more space, which not all countries have available. "Wildly expensive" nuclear is simply not true when put in to the perspective of a national grid vs wind+solar+storage. The space factor is also at play when you look at geographical dispersion. It's one thing for Australia or the US to have enough solar and wind farms around the country where conditions vary, but what about the UK? A cloudy winter with hardly any sun means they are left with wind, and a day with little wind across a geographical area the size of the UK is not uncommon. It has happened for some lengthy periods, in fact: http://euanmearns.com/flat-calm-across-the-uk/ http://euanmearns.com/flat-calm-across-the-uk/. No storage solutions proposed so far have the longevity needed for the odd extended calm+dark spell. Europe is at least fortunate enough to have an international electricity market across its internal borders to help manage this, but that largely works because of France's nuclear plants. It is the largest electricity exporter in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_exports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...
losvedir 10y ago
Define "very bad". The total deaths attributed to Fukushima (including increased chance of cancer over the next decades) is about 100 people. Chernobyl is surrounded by essentially a thriving nature preserve. What if the nuclear facility were surrounded by a human-forbidden nature preserve the size of the equivalently producing solar/wind farm?
- sunstone 10y ago
  I define "bad" by insurability. If the activity to be pursued has risks so high that no one will insure it. Then that's "very bad".
- lambdadmitry 10y ago
  I believe the "total deaths" argument is dishonest. The death count is so low precisely because we know the danger exists and effect massive evacuation and decontamination programs. Such efforts are very expensive and bring a lot of suffering to those displaced, but those downsides don't register on the "total deaths" scale.
  - wbl 10y ago
    People live in Denver. If a nuclear reactor made a sea level city have the radiation of Denver we would evacuate it.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

It's not a disingenuous appraisal; you're overblowing the safety issues. When nuclear fails, the bad isn't that bad. Fukushima impact was mostly from panic and unnecessary evacuations. Even Chernobyl wasn't that bad (compare to e.g. hydroelectric dam failures). As for solar power, I hope what you say is true; I still wonder what's their EROI and real carbon footprint, when you correct for the subsidies (which are fine as means to get solar running, but not fine for calculations of impact on climate and energy security).

kbenson 10y ago
> When nuclear fails, the bad isn't that bad. Fukushima impact was mostly from panic and unnecessary evacuations. Doesn't that imply to some degree that the "isn't that bad" is because we have people to stop it from going really bad when it goes bad? I can't help but feel what's missing from the assessment is the various levels of failures of each technology, how much intervention is required if any to keep it to that failure level, and how likely that failure level is. We're all talking about probability of outcomes but we still seem to be leaving out essential information.

cknight 10y ago

We also need to consider that even with the rapidly improving costs of renewbales, the dollars per GwH generated are still beyond nuclear, and require orders of magnitude more space, which not all countries have available. "Wildly expensive" nuclear is simply not true when put in to the perspective of a national grid vs wind+solar+storage. The space factor is also at play when you look at geographical dispersion. It's one thing for Australia or the US to have enough solar and wind farms around the country where conditions vary, but what about the UK? A cloudy winter with hardly any sun means they are left with wind, and a day with little wind across a geographical area the size of the UK is not uncommon. It has happened for some lengthy periods, in fact: http://euanmearns.com/flat-calm-across-the-uk/ http://euanmearns.com/flat-calm-across-the-uk/. No storage solutions proposed so far have the longevity needed for the odd extended calm+dark spell. Europe is at least fortunate enough to have an international electricity market across its internal borders to help manage this, but that largely works because of France's nuclear plants. It is the largest electricity exporter in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_exports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...

losvedir 10y ago

Define "very bad". The total deaths attributed to Fukushima (including increased chance of cancer over the next decades) is about 100 people. Chernobyl is surrounded by essentially a thriving nature preserve. What if the nuclear facility were surrounded by a human-forbidden nature preserve the size of the equivalently producing solar/wind farm?

sunstone 10y ago
I define "bad" by insurability. If the activity to be pursued has risks so high that no one will insure it. Then that's "very bad".
lambdadmitry 10y ago
I believe the "total deaths" argument is dishonest. The death count is so low precisely because we know the danger exists and effect massive evacuation and decontamination programs. Such efforts are very expensive and bring a lot of suffering to those displaced, but those downsides don't register on the "total deaths" scale.
- wbl 10y ago
  People live in Denver. If a nuclear reactor made a sea level city have the radiation of Denver we would evacuate it.