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I believe the politicization of nuclear energy (the resulting lack of investment & innovation) will go down as one of the major blunders in human history. We'

I believe the politicization of nuclear energy (the resulting lack of investment & innovation) will go down as one of the major blunders in human history. We'd be in a far, far better situation with greenhouse gasses if we (as a human race) had continued to invest in nuclear energy. There would have been mishaps along the way, but at a much smaller scale than we're experiencing now with deaths from air pollution and looming risk of a warming planet. We'd have much, much safer systems with modern reactor designs.

dimillian 9y ago
Well, they tried that in the Fallout universe, everything was running on nuclear power... it didn't ended well ;)
QAPereo 9y ago
>I believe the politicization of nuclear energy (the resulting lack of investment & innovation) will go down as one of the major blunders in human history. It's more or less ensured that we won't be in any shape to record histories sooner rather than later.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
lispm 9y ago
Nuclear energy was politicized from day minus one. It was developed out of government driven military technology. In day zero nuclear energy was set up by politicians: goals, strategies, financing, deployment, risk handling, etc. Everything was coming from energy politics. Investments were directed and the market&regulations for nuclear were set up. Government largely financed it and insures it. The large scale, the monopolistic businesses and the government centric energy politics made it ideal for corruption. Remember, Fukushima was claimed to be fully save after inspections, just before the accident happened, which destroyed several reactors. The investment into nuclear energy was a political decision. Every further investment into nuclear is a political decision. The 'small modern reactors' are mostly funded by government and the users are mostly military. The military is already mostly the only user of small reactors: nuclear powered ships and submarines. Now we see other players which favor other energy politics (like the current US President who favors fossil fuels like coal, because his voters want jobs in the coal industry). The point is: energy is always politics.
- nnfy 9y ago
  Fukushima was safe, by all standards. This was not related to corruption. It was simply not designed for the rarity of a magnitude 9 earthquake and the scale of the tsunami that followed. Your house in a five hundred year floodplain is not unsafe for lacking stilts. Safety costs money, this wasn't corruption.
  - adamsea 9y ago
    Your standard of safety does not sound appropriate for nuclear reactors. And, the decision not to spend the money to make Fukushima safer may well have been a craven, if not corrupt, one. TEPCO has been pretty sleazy ever since the accident.
    - LeifCarrotson 9y ago
      > sleazy ever since the accident. Do you mean "even"?
  - lispm 9y ago
    http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-accident.aspx http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-... > In the last century there have been eight tsunamis in the region with maximum amplitudes at origin above 10 metres (some much more), these having arisen from earthquakes of magnitude 7.7 to 8.4, on average one every 12 years. Those in 1983 and in 1993 were the most recent affecting Japan, with maximum heights at origin of 14.5 metres and 31 metres respectively, both induced by magnitude 7.7 earthquakes. The June 1896 earthquake of estimated magnitude 8.3 produced a tsunami with run-up height of 38 metres in Tohoku region, killing more than 27,000 people. This risk needs to be addressed. That many people were killed by a tsunami is a catastrophe. But one would also like to have a stable energy system that does not go down like that and creates a huge problem (financial, technological, human, ...) for several decades. The japanese nuclear industry is famous for their corruption. Reactors were claimed save, which in a single event were totally wrecked. We are not talking about a single problem, but multiple problems (failing electricity backups, failing outside electricity, exploding buildings, ...), design mistakes (fuel is difficult to reach) and problems generated by running these reactors (like the amount of spent fuel on-site which needs lots of electricity for cooling).
futhey 9y ago
I'm more afraid of having nuclear power plants now that we no longer have a thriving industry to support innovation and technological progress in the field. From my understanding, we stopped innovating in fission power plant design decades ago.
- voidlogic 9y ago
  >we stopped innovating in fission power plant design decades ago. No work on new better designed as continued, we just stopped building many of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_III_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_III_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor
  - flubert 9y ago
    Don't forget things like Small Modular Reactors: https://www.energy.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor-technologies/small-modular-nuclear-reactors https://www.energy.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor-technologies/small... http://www.nuscalepower.com/ http://www.nuscalepower.com/
padseeker 9y ago
I bet Fukushima was pretty damn safe, maybe one of the best nuclear power plants designed. The best designs cannot account for everything. There is always a risk of an accident, and you need consider not just accidental but intentional mishaps (dirty bombs). Very low risk of something happening is not the same is the damaged caused if that risk becomes a reality.
- amluto 9y ago
  Fukushima was a boiling water reactor, which is not a good design. A good design would be passively safe, which more or less means that you can turn off the plant and walk away without a disaster occurring.
  - oconnor663 9y ago
    Were the safer designs available in 1971?
    - catwell 9y ago
      Yes. Pressurized water reactors are very old, they were developed around the same time as boiling water reactors, in the 50s. Their superior safety has been known for a long time as well, which is why all 58 French reactors active today are PWRs (and most of those in the US are as well). That being said, it is still probably a bad idea to put a power plant in a place which is known to be exposed to tsunami...
      - gruturo 9y ago
        > That being said, it is still probably a bad idea to put a power plant in a place which is known to be exposed to tsunami... ...Especially in the country which originated the word tsunami
      - loup-vaillant 9y ago
        Pressurised water reactors still rely on active security. Molten salt for instance allows passive designs.
padseeker 9y ago
What do you mean "politicization"? Please saw the movie the China syndrome and then 3 mile island happened. Then people were very afraid. These were real possibilities. Does anyone want to live near a nuclear power plant? Do you? I sure as hell would not. How can you twist fear of a disaster in "politicization"? You are also looking thru the lens of our current situation. Very little was being discussed about the risks of global warming and greenhouse gasses back in the heyday of nuclear power, i.e. the 1970's. The last nuclear power plant in the US was built in the 1970s, which was when the last major accident that happened in the US (3 mile Island). That's not even considering Chernobyl.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  so what is the alternative in the meantime? Everyone breathing coal particles and many people dying of lung cancer before their time? How is the current energy production safe by anY standards? did you even read the article ?
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    Natural gas, wind, solar, hydro where available.
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      apart from gas none of the sources you mentioned are short term solutions.
    - nickik 9y ago
      Hydro is mostly used up in the developed world, it will never go far. Wind and solar can not even cover all the required growth, specially not outside of the developed world. Natural gas is a good option, specially to replace coal. Modern nuclear plants however would be even better.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  > Do you? Actually, yes! Statistically it's safer than living next to a coal-fired plant.
btilly 9y ago
The problem with nuclear energy is that a nuclear power plant isn't very different in concept from a nuclear bomb. Getting the latter from the former is a serious concern. Having the former accidentally turn into a dirty nuke (not a lot of force, but lots of fallout), is scarily easy. Just see 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl.
- jimmaswell 9y ago
  It is very different. You can't just make an atom bomb out of what's available at a nuclear plant. They're entirely different concepts requiting diffrrent materials. Chernobyl was an outdated design known to be dangerous at the time it was made, and something like the Chernobyl incident can't happen on anything newer. A study found statistically insignificant rises in cancer rates from the 3 Mile incident. I recommend the book Atomic Accidents, it's very informative and I believe it went over specifically why a nuclear plant can't just explode like an atom bomb or even really help you make one.
  - iamatworknow 9y ago
    I think it's worthwhile to differentiate between a critical mass fission/fusion bomb and a dirty bomb. A dirty bomb can be made from anything radioactive coupled with a conventional explosive, since the goal is just to spread the radioactive material as widely as possible. Fission/fusion bombs (what we typically would consider as "atomic bombs") are, as you said, way harder to pull off. The general public definitely likes to conflate the two.
  - btilly 9y ago
    It is both different, and not different. No, your average nuclear plant doesn't have the makings of an atom bomb. But countries that are running nuclear power plants have an obvious incentive to create enrichment facilities for their nuclear power. These facilities are similar to those that enrich further for a nuclear bomb. Several countries have achieved nuclear bombs this way. Furthermore nuclear plants do not all work the same way. There are advocates of thorium nuclear plants, because thorium is a much more abundant fuel source that should be able to operate more cleanly than uranium. However those plants generate uranium-233 which can be potentially separated through chemical processes in plants that are a lot easier to hide than centrifuges used for enrichment. Both ways, nuclear power can be a step on the way to nuclear proliferation.
nickbauman 9y ago
The recalcitrant problem of nuclear waste storage is now a permanent part of human history going forward even if not one single nuke plant is ever onlined again. So the dangers of nukes are here to stay no matter what. Making a new nuke plant or not will not change this problem. One could even argue that if we continue developing nuke plants we'll get better at dealing with the waste. If we don't we'll get worse. Having said that, it takes 30 years to online a new nuke plant. They have to be maintained over centuries. It's easier to make wind farms, geothermal and photovoltaics today, right now. We can't wait 30+ years for nukes to help our clean energy future happen.
- adrianN 9y ago
  Breeder reactors mostly fix the waste problem. Even without breeders, you should think hard about the tradeoff of having a fairly limited amount of solid stuff that you have to take care of for a very long time versus altering the climate of the whole planet and potentially messing up phytoplankton for a very long time, all while also causing all kinds of pollution.
  - nickbauman 9y ago
    Seems like a "grass is greener" case. The people of Fukushima Prefecture wish they could trade their nuke waste problem for a few dozen feet of sea level. I know I would if I were them.
slackingoff2017 9y ago
The problem with nuclear goes back to the beginning. The original reason for nuclear research, and even the first reactors, was to breed bomb material. Nuclear power was an extension of "atoms for peace" which was originally political cover to continue weapons programs. Some commercial reactors are secretly used for this purpose even today. Nuclear may have a bright future but it's extremely difficult to cleave energy from the state interest in weapons. And I'm not just talking about the US, this is an issue with nuclear power worldwide. The biggest blunder was using nuclear technology for bombs first. I'm afraid the word is forever tainted by history.
- livingparadox 9y ago
  Do you have a source for your claims?
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Common sense is hard to link to.
- pm90 9y ago
  I don't understand why this would have any effect on domestic nuclear power production in the nations that already have nuclear weapons. Probably the most important question: why don't the US and China get more of their domestic power from Nuclear? Also, I need to some source for the claims that Atoms for Peace was meant as a cover to transfer nuclear technology. I believe the program was created as a way to provide civilian nuclear generation capabilities to friendly nations, in return for a guarantee that nations would not use the technology for making nuclear weapons (India was probably the most famous "rogue": they used the know-how from the research reactors to build an actual nuclear weapon).
  - slackingoff2017 9y ago
    TRIGA type research reactors, probably the most popular model, are specifically designed to be "pulse reactors" that can produce rapid power spikes of 20,000+MW. I don't see how you could argue that the main purpose isn't simulating nuclear detonations. Same with Sandia Z Pinch machine and NIF. It's all dual purpose tech to simulate bombs since actual testing isn't done anymore. You won't find anyone that says it outright but the government interest in pulsed power is awful suspect.
oelmekki 9y ago
This is a debate we have all the time, here in France, where we chose nuclear energy as main source of energy for several decades. Nowadays, everybody but lobbyists (because for those reasons, nuclear industry is strong, here) seems to agree renewable is the way to go (but we're far to be able to replace nuclear with renewable), mainly because: * we don't know what to do with nuclear wastes, and we start to have a lot * every now and then, you have to dismantle old nuclear plants, and it appears the cost is totally exuberant
- dangerlibrary 9y ago
  You probably meant "exorbitant." http://www.dictionary.com/browse/exuberant http://www.dictionary.com/browse/exuberant http://www.dictionary.com/browse/exorbitant http://www.dictionary.com/browse/exorbitant
- yodsanklai 9y ago
  > renewable is the way to go Everybody agrees with that. The question is whether we choose nuclear or coal during the transition to 100% renewable (if it ever happens). > we don't know what to do with nuclear wastes, and we start to have a lot > you have to dismantle old nuclear plants, and it appears the cost is totally exuberant I don't know if it's that bad. But again, is this worse than coal?
  - oelmekki 9y ago
    That's a hard question. I certainly would not support replacing our nuclear plants with coal plants, I would prefer everyone stay with their current system and we go as fast as possible to replace them with something worth it : trying to replace a bad source with an other bad one, but a bit better, costs time, money and human resources. But the article kind of make me raise an eyebrow when they say that for highly radioactive wastes, we just have to find deep burial sites that will know no geological activity for one million year. Certainly doesn't sound as easy as implied, especially if all earth starts using nuclear power as main energy source. That being said, I remember reading a few months ago about a breakthrough in Germany in nuclear field, where no rare material (like plutonium) was needed, and wastes were greatly reduced. This could be a global way (and then, we may not even need renewable).
triangleman 9y ago
I believe the focus on CO2 will go down as a pretty big blunder. As for nuclear, it seems pretty expensive when you account for the total lifecycle of the plants (see sibling comment from France).
Spooky23 9y ago
We would be in a better place with respect to greenhouse gasses. But we're also subject to long term disposal of waste products and high risk of pollution of groundwater, and other water sources. Some of those risks will be risks for thousands of years. The typical answers from nuclear proponents never cover what to do with the waste product.
- ianai 9y ago
  You send it to Yucca mountain or you treat it for reuse like they do in France.
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    What was the opening date for Yucca mountain again?
    - boomboomsubban 9y ago
      Depends on how much of the original work is still usable, I'd guess ten years after funding it.
- nickik 9y ago
  Nuclear waste is nuclear fuel. Also new reactor types have solved all these problems. They can create very little waste that only has to be stored a far shorter time. The problem is that anti-nuclear people have created a environment where no more research happens and old technology just limps along. The science is clear, the needed technology is understood, we just need somebody to build it. There are startups who try, but its very difficult.
aquadrop 9y ago
> will go down as one of the major blunders in human history. I agree, inability to properly advance nuclear energy will will be regarded as a big blunder in the future. The great irony that Greenpeace, which supposedly wants to save environment, dealt so much damage to it, by protesting nuclear energy.
mncolinlee 9y ago
Nuclear suffers from the same problems as many political issues. The greatest risks of nuclear energy is not "safety," but rather cost, insurance, and financing. As humans our brains are attuned to avoid worst case scenarios instead of fearing more likely, but less scary situations. Both sides hear the talking points. The talking points target our most passionate and overriding fears, instead of real world concerns. This is because these false fears are more effective than real ones for changing minds. Having run for office on a few occasions, the most important factor about winning seems to be having a good narrative-- one which seems consistent with voters' personal experiences.
fulafel 9y ago
We'd be in a far better GHG situation if we had poured all that r&d into renewables, would have gotten solar cost below fossil 20-30 years earlier and probably left fracking and tar sands hydrocarbons forever in the ground.
beat 9y ago
One key problem... much of the world's population lives in nations socially incapable of supporting nuclear power, or with governments that cannot be trusted with significant quantities of nuclear materials due to proliferation, or both. Advocacy of nuclear has a bad tendency to think of "the world" as the US, Europe, Japan, and China. Any solution that aggravates the haves/have-nots divide is going to cause problems.
- tbihl 9y ago
  Plenty of environmental groups would be pretty happy to curb emissions in "just" US, Europe, Japan, and China...
pbreit 9y ago
I suspect the opposite argument could easily be made (if going big into nuclear somehow caused human extinction, which is easy to envision).
Apofis 9y ago
Seriously, there's zero reason that we don't have small portable safe nuclear reactors to power neighbourhoods and large oceangoing vessels by now. Since ocean freight liners and oil tankers produce a large portion if not the largest portion of the current air pollution, it just makes sense to get them completely off of diesel and bunker fuel and equip them with small nuclear reactions, something like a LFTR would be perfect... had we spent the last 40-50 years researching them. Thankfully, at least China has picked up the slack with LFTR research and hope to have something going within the next 5-10 years. Maybe then the rest of the world will wake up.

dimillian 9y ago

Well, they tried that in the Fallout universe, everything was running on nuclear power... it didn't ended well ;)

QAPereo 9y ago

>I believe the politicization of nuclear energy (the resulting lack of investment & innovation) will go down as one of the major blunders in human history. It's more or less ensured that we won't be in any shape to record histories sooner rather than later.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

lispm 9y ago

Nuclear energy was politicized from day minus one. It was developed out of government driven military technology. In day zero nuclear energy was set up by politicians: goals, strategies, financing, deployment, risk handling, etc. Everything was coming from energy politics. Investments were directed and the market&regulations for nuclear were set up. Government largely financed it and insures it. The large scale, the monopolistic businesses and the government centric energy politics made it ideal for corruption. Remember, Fukushima was claimed to be fully save after inspections, just before the accident happened, which destroyed several reactors. The investment into nuclear energy was a political decision. Every further investment into nuclear is a political decision. The 'small modern reactors' are mostly funded by government and the users are mostly military. The military is already mostly the only user of small reactors: nuclear powered ships and submarines. Now we see other players which favor other energy politics (like the current US President who favors fossil fuels like coal, because his voters want jobs in the coal industry). The point is: energy is always politics.

nnfy 9y ago
Fukushima was safe, by all standards. This was not related to corruption. It was simply not designed for the rarity of a magnitude 9 earthquake and the scale of the tsunami that followed. Your house in a five hundred year floodplain is not unsafe for lacking stilts. Safety costs money, this wasn't corruption.
- adamsea 9y ago
  Your standard of safety does not sound appropriate for nuclear reactors. And, the decision not to spend the money to make Fukushima safer may well have been a craven, if not corrupt, one. TEPCO has been pretty sleazy ever since the accident.
  - LeifCarrotson 9y ago
    > sleazy ever since the accident. Do you mean "even"?
- lispm 9y ago
  http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-accident.aspx http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-... > In the last century there have been eight tsunamis in the region with maximum amplitudes at origin above 10 metres (some much more), these having arisen from earthquakes of magnitude 7.7 to 8.4, on average one every 12 years. Those in 1983 and in 1993 were the most recent affecting Japan, with maximum heights at origin of 14.5 metres and 31 metres respectively, both induced by magnitude 7.7 earthquakes. The June 1896 earthquake of estimated magnitude 8.3 produced a tsunami with run-up height of 38 metres in Tohoku region, killing more than 27,000 people. This risk needs to be addressed. That many people were killed by a tsunami is a catastrophe. But one would also like to have a stable energy system that does not go down like that and creates a huge problem (financial, technological, human, ...) for several decades. The japanese nuclear industry is famous for their corruption. Reactors were claimed save, which in a single event were totally wrecked. We are not talking about a single problem, but multiple problems (failing electricity backups, failing outside electricity, exploding buildings, ...), design mistakes (fuel is difficult to reach) and problems generated by running these reactors (like the amount of spent fuel on-site which needs lots of electricity for cooling).

futhey 9y ago

I'm more afraid of having nuclear power plants now that we no longer have a thriving industry to support innovation and technological progress in the field. From my understanding, we stopped innovating in fission power plant design decades ago.

voidlogic 9y ago
>we stopped innovating in fission power plant design decades ago. No work on new better designed as continued, we just stopped building many of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_III_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_III_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor
- flubert 9y ago
  Don't forget things like Small Modular Reactors: https://www.energy.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor-technologies/small-modular-nuclear-reactors https://www.energy.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor-technologies/small... http://www.nuscalepower.com/ http://www.nuscalepower.com/

padseeker 9y ago

I bet Fukushima was pretty damn safe, maybe one of the best nuclear power plants designed. The best designs cannot account for everything. There is always a risk of an accident, and you need consider not just accidental but intentional mishaps (dirty bombs). Very low risk of something happening is not the same is the damaged caused if that risk becomes a reality.

amluto 9y ago
Fukushima was a boiling water reactor, which is not a good design. A good design would be passively safe, which more or less means that you can turn off the plant and walk away without a disaster occurring.
- oconnor663 9y ago
  Were the safer designs available in 1971?
  - catwell 9y ago
    Yes. Pressurized water reactors are very old, they were developed around the same time as boiling water reactors, in the 50s. Their superior safety has been known for a long time as well, which is why all 58 French reactors active today are PWRs (and most of those in the US are as well). That being said, it is still probably a bad idea to put a power plant in a place which is known to be exposed to tsunami...
    - gruturo 9y ago
      > That being said, it is still probably a bad idea to put a power plant in a place which is known to be exposed to tsunami... ...Especially in the country which originated the word tsunami
    - loup-vaillant 9y ago
      Pressurised water reactors still rely on active security. Molten salt for instance allows passive designs.

padseeker 9y ago

What do you mean "politicization"? Please saw the movie the China syndrome and then 3 mile island happened. Then people were very afraid. These were real possibilities. Does anyone want to live near a nuclear power plant? Do you? I sure as hell would not. How can you twist fear of a disaster in "politicization"? You are also looking thru the lens of our current situation. Very little was being discussed about the risks of global warming and greenhouse gasses back in the heyday of nuclear power, i.e. the 1970's. The last nuclear power plant in the US was built in the 1970s, which was when the last major accident that happened in the US (3 mile Island). That's not even considering Chernobyl.

ekianjo 9y ago
so what is the alternative in the meantime? Everyone breathing coal particles and many people dying of lung cancer before their time? How is the current energy production safe by anY standards? did you even read the article ?
- Spooky23 9y ago
  Natural gas, wind, solar, hydro where available.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    apart from gas none of the sources you mentioned are short term solutions.
  - nickik 9y ago
    Hydro is mostly used up in the developed world, it will never go far. Wind and solar can not even cover all the required growth, specially not outside of the developed world. Natural gas is a good option, specially to replace coal. Modern nuclear plants however would be even better.
saagarjha 9y ago
> Do you? Actually, yes! Statistically it's safer than living next to a coal-fired plant.

btilly 9y ago

The problem with nuclear energy is that a nuclear power plant isn't very different in concept from a nuclear bomb. Getting the latter from the former is a serious concern. Having the former accidentally turn into a dirty nuke (not a lot of force, but lots of fallout), is scarily easy. Just see 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl.

jimmaswell 9y ago
It is very different. You can't just make an atom bomb out of what's available at a nuclear plant. They're entirely different concepts requiting diffrrent materials. Chernobyl was an outdated design known to be dangerous at the time it was made, and something like the Chernobyl incident can't happen on anything newer. A study found statistically insignificant rises in cancer rates from the 3 Mile incident. I recommend the book Atomic Accidents, it's very informative and I believe it went over specifically why a nuclear plant can't just explode like an atom bomb or even really help you make one.
- iamatworknow 9y ago
  I think it's worthwhile to differentiate between a critical mass fission/fusion bomb and a dirty bomb. A dirty bomb can be made from anything radioactive coupled with a conventional explosive, since the goal is just to spread the radioactive material as widely as possible. Fission/fusion bombs (what we typically would consider as "atomic bombs") are, as you said, way harder to pull off. The general public definitely likes to conflate the two.
- btilly 9y ago
  It is both different, and not different. No, your average nuclear plant doesn't have the makings of an atom bomb. But countries that are running nuclear power plants have an obvious incentive to create enrichment facilities for their nuclear power. These facilities are similar to those that enrich further for a nuclear bomb. Several countries have achieved nuclear bombs this way. Furthermore nuclear plants do not all work the same way. There are advocates of thorium nuclear plants, because thorium is a much more abundant fuel source that should be able to operate more cleanly than uranium. However those plants generate uranium-233 which can be potentially separated through chemical processes in plants that are a lot easier to hide than centrifuges used for enrichment. Both ways, nuclear power can be a step on the way to nuclear proliferation.

nickbauman 9y ago

The recalcitrant problem of nuclear waste storage is now a permanent part of human history going forward even if not one single nuke plant is ever onlined again. So the dangers of nukes are here to stay no matter what. Making a new nuke plant or not will not change this problem. One could even argue that if we continue developing nuke plants we'll get better at dealing with the waste. If we don't we'll get worse. Having said that, it takes 30 years to online a new nuke plant. They have to be maintained over centuries. It's easier to make wind farms, geothermal and photovoltaics today, right now. We can't wait 30+ years for nukes to help our clean energy future happen.

adrianN 9y ago
Breeder reactors mostly fix the waste problem. Even without breeders, you should think hard about the tradeoff of having a fairly limited amount of solid stuff that you have to take care of for a very long time versus altering the climate of the whole planet and potentially messing up phytoplankton for a very long time, all while also causing all kinds of pollution.
- nickbauman 9y ago
  Seems like a "grass is greener" case. The people of Fukushima Prefecture wish they could trade their nuke waste problem for a few dozen feet of sea level. I know I would if I were them.

slackingoff2017 9y ago

The problem with nuclear goes back to the beginning. The original reason for nuclear research, and even the first reactors, was to breed bomb material. Nuclear power was an extension of "atoms for peace" which was originally political cover to continue weapons programs. Some commercial reactors are secretly used for this purpose even today. Nuclear may have a bright future but it's extremely difficult to cleave energy from the state interest in weapons. And I'm not just talking about the US, this is an issue with nuclear power worldwide. The biggest blunder was using nuclear technology for bombs first. I'm afraid the word is forever tainted by history.

livingparadox 9y ago
Do you have a source for your claims?
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Common sense is hard to link to.
pm90 9y ago
I don't understand why this would have any effect on domestic nuclear power production in the nations that already have nuclear weapons. Probably the most important question: why don't the US and China get more of their domestic power from Nuclear? Also, I need to some source for the claims that Atoms for Peace was meant as a cover to transfer nuclear technology. I believe the program was created as a way to provide civilian nuclear generation capabilities to friendly nations, in return for a guarantee that nations would not use the technology for making nuclear weapons (India was probably the most famous "rogue": they used the know-how from the research reactors to build an actual nuclear weapon).
- slackingoff2017 9y ago
  TRIGA type research reactors, probably the most popular model, are specifically designed to be "pulse reactors" that can produce rapid power spikes of 20,000+MW. I don't see how you could argue that the main purpose isn't simulating nuclear detonations. Same with Sandia Z Pinch machine and NIF. It's all dual purpose tech to simulate bombs since actual testing isn't done anymore. You won't find anyone that says it outright but the government interest in pulsed power is awful suspect.

oelmekki 9y ago

This is a debate we have all the time, here in France, where we chose nuclear energy as main source of energy for several decades. Nowadays, everybody but lobbyists (because for those reasons, nuclear industry is strong, here) seems to agree renewable is the way to go (but we're far to be able to replace nuclear with renewable), mainly because: * we don't know what to do with nuclear wastes, and we start to have a lot * every now and then, you have to dismantle old nuclear plants, and it appears the cost is totally exuberant

dangerlibrary 9y ago
You probably meant "exorbitant." http://www.dictionary.com/browse/exuberant http://www.dictionary.com/browse/exuberant http://www.dictionary.com/browse/exorbitant http://www.dictionary.com/browse/exorbitant
yodsanklai 9y ago
> renewable is the way to go Everybody agrees with that. The question is whether we choose nuclear or coal during the transition to 100% renewable (if it ever happens). > we don't know what to do with nuclear wastes, and we start to have a lot > you have to dismantle old nuclear plants, and it appears the cost is totally exuberant I don't know if it's that bad. But again, is this worse than coal?
- oelmekki 9y ago
  That's a hard question. I certainly would not support replacing our nuclear plants with coal plants, I would prefer everyone stay with their current system and we go as fast as possible to replace them with something worth it : trying to replace a bad source with an other bad one, but a bit better, costs time, money and human resources. But the article kind of make me raise an eyebrow when they say that for highly radioactive wastes, we just have to find deep burial sites that will know no geological activity for one million year. Certainly doesn't sound as easy as implied, especially if all earth starts using nuclear power as main energy source. That being said, I remember reading a few months ago about a breakthrough in Germany in nuclear field, where no rare material (like plutonium) was needed, and wastes were greatly reduced. This could be a global way (and then, we may not even need renewable).

triangleman 9y ago

I believe the focus on CO2 will go down as a pretty big blunder. As for nuclear, it seems pretty expensive when you account for the total lifecycle of the plants (see sibling comment from France).

Spooky23 9y ago

We would be in a better place with respect to greenhouse gasses. But we're also subject to long term disposal of waste products and high risk of pollution of groundwater, and other water sources. Some of those risks will be risks for thousands of years. The typical answers from nuclear proponents never cover what to do with the waste product.

ianai 9y ago
You send it to Yucca mountain or you treat it for reuse like they do in France.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  What was the opening date for Yucca mountain again?
  - boomboomsubban 9y ago
    Depends on how much of the original work is still usable, I'd guess ten years after funding it.
nickik 9y ago
Nuclear waste is nuclear fuel. Also new reactor types have solved all these problems. They can create very little waste that only has to be stored a far shorter time. The problem is that anti-nuclear people have created a environment where no more research happens and old technology just limps along. The science is clear, the needed technology is understood, we just need somebody to build it. There are startups who try, but its very difficult.

aquadrop 9y ago

> will go down as one of the major blunders in human history. I agree, inability to properly advance nuclear energy will will be regarded as a big blunder in the future. The great irony that Greenpeace, which supposedly wants to save environment, dealt so much damage to it, by protesting nuclear energy.

mncolinlee 9y ago

Nuclear suffers from the same problems as many political issues. The greatest risks of nuclear energy is not "safety," but rather cost, insurance, and financing. As humans our brains are attuned to avoid worst case scenarios instead of fearing more likely, but less scary situations. Both sides hear the talking points. The talking points target our most passionate and overriding fears, instead of real world concerns. This is because these false fears are more effective than real ones for changing minds. Having run for office on a few occasions, the most important factor about winning seems to be having a good narrative-- one which seems consistent with voters' personal experiences.

fulafel 9y ago

We'd be in a far better GHG situation if we had poured all that r&d into renewables, would have gotten solar cost below fossil 20-30 years earlier and probably left fracking and tar sands hydrocarbons forever in the ground.

beat 9y ago

One key problem... much of the world's population lives in nations socially incapable of supporting nuclear power, or with governments that cannot be trusted with significant quantities of nuclear materials due to proliferation, or both. Advocacy of nuclear has a bad tendency to think of "the world" as the US, Europe, Japan, and China. Any solution that aggravates the haves/have-nots divide is going to cause problems.

tbihl 9y ago
Plenty of environmental groups would be pretty happy to curb emissions in "just" US, Europe, Japan, and China...

pbreit 9y ago

I suspect the opposite argument could easily be made (if going big into nuclear somehow caused human extinction, which is easy to envision).

Apofis 9y ago

Seriously, there's zero reason that we don't have small portable safe nuclear reactors to power neighbourhoods and large oceangoing vessels by now. Since ocean freight liners and oil tankers produce a large portion if not the largest portion of the current air pollution, it just makes sense to get them completely off of diesel and bunker fuel and equip them with small nuclear reactions, something like a LFTR would be perfect... had we spent the last 40-50 years researching them. Thankfully, at least China has picked up the slack with LFTR research and hope to have something going within the next 5-10 years. Maybe then the rest of the world will wake up.