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I long believed that nuclear power was the only energy source cleaner than fossil fuels and scalable enough to meet the energy demands of the world. While that

I long believed that nuclear power was the only energy source cleaner than fossil fuels and scalable enough to meet the energy demands of the world. While that might still be true in some sense, I now believe that humanity isn't ready for nuclear power. Besides the Fukushima and Chernobyl type issues with organizations skimping on design, there's still an outstanding problem of nuclear waste storage. The current nuclear power statistics haven't factored in a major waste storage incident because one hasn't happened yet. Until we've witnessed multiple lifecycles of nuclear fuel consumption to full waste breakdown, the safety stats could still swing against nuclear power. Maybe all it'd take is a terrorist incident involving nuclear waste. From what I understand, breeder reactors can vastly reduce the quantity of a power plant's waste and produce waste with a much shorter half life. This isn't widely implemented or shared because that technology can also be used to produce weapons grade material. I think humanity will be ready if/when we can sort out our differences without violence and greed/corruption are no longer problems for most large orgs. Additionally, renewables seem to have better scalability today than they did in the 90's when I formed my initial opinions. Right now, the worst case situation with a renewable power source is probably a large dam bursting. That's certainly possible due to corruption or terrorism too. If the three gorges dam suddenly burst, that could take out most of Shanghai. For most other renewables, the potential worst case is much milder though.

cel1ne 9y ago
Isn't there also the issue of fuel-reserves (uranium etc.) actually not lasting more than about 50-100 years?
- eric-hu 9y ago
  Yeah, that's an issue too, though again, breeder reactors could extend that number significantly. But the countries that possess that tech don't want to use it widely or share it. Not sure if the former is due to cost or lack of expertise. The latter is definitely due to distrust in humanity.
gizmo 9y ago
I agree that renewables are a very good alternative to nuclear power, but in practice moving away from nuclear means doubling down on coal. The problems with nuclear are political, but the alternatives to nuclear power are mired in political conflict as well. As for your dam bursting scenario, something like that actually happened in the 70s when the Banqiao Dam burst. Nearly 200.000 people died. Fukushima had 0 radiation deaths.
- cptskippy 9y ago
  > Fukushima had 0 radiation deaths. I think making that statement or even the comparison to other types of disasters is a little disingenuous. With most disasters they happen and then they're over in very short order. A nuclear disaster is very slow to unfold and the deaths from radiation related illnesses are not yet fully realized for quite some time. The Chernobyl disaster is still unfolding and even with the latest containment, NSC, having been installed. It will take hundreds of years before we're done with it.
- RobAley 9y ago
  You can't really say 0 deaths, because no one knows. We don't have good epidemiological models for wide-spread low-level dispersal such as was seen at Fukushima, we already know incidences of cancer and gene mutation don't scale linearly with exposure at low levels. There are also associated deaths from psychological factors of those who were evacuated, lost land / business etc. which will only become apparent in years to come. Dams do have the potential for massive loss of life as you say, and they also suffer from the problem of massive centralisation of capacity (unlike e.g. solar or wind). On the smaller upside, the models related to fatalities are pretty well understood. Perhaps an instant move away from nuclear may need coal, although here in the UK it's gas that has been taking up the slack while the government dilly-dally on whether to build out new nuclear or invest in renewables research (successfully doing neither). I see over the longer term renewables coming up as nuclear is naturally retired at the end of the current plant's lifespan. Solar is now cheaper than coal to built-out in many places, there are other impediments but (generally) lack of public support isn't one of them (compared to coal/nuclear).
  - 9y ago
littlestymaar 9y ago
> Maybe all it'd take is a terrorist incident involving nuclear waste. There are so many radiologic sources out there, used for many purposes (medicine, gammagraphy), very dangerous[1] but taken with much less care than nuclear wastes from the nuclear power industry. Stuff like this [2] happen all the time … [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident [2] (in French) https://www.asn.fr/Controler/Actualites-du-controle/Avis-d-incident-hors-installations-nucleaires/Perte-d-une-source-radioactive-scellee https://www.asn.fr/Controler/Actualites-du-controle/Avis-d-i...
- wahern 9y ago
  Or whatever happened in Russia within the past few weeks: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/10/nuclear-accident-in-russia-or-kazakhstan-sends-radioactive-cloud-over-europe https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/10/nuclear-accide... I kinda agree with your point: terrorists already have considerable access, theoretically, to radioactive materials. In fact, the materials used for medicine and science are in many ways much more dangerous from a public health perspective given their short, energetic half-lives. The only substantial, long-term danger from terrorists is to the financial viability of nuclear power. Nobody cares about incidents like the above. But if it were tied to terrorism somehow it would be all over the news and nuclear stocks would plummet. Similarly, for a terrorist incident involving medical use even anti-nuclear activists would have more nuanced reactions, whereas if it involved nuclear power such an incident would herald the end of the world.
  - bonesss 9y ago
    Nuclear facilities aren't really dependent on market perception to keep their stock prices high - they sell power. The terrorists won't do a better job of slandering fission than the oil & gas companies have done, and nuclear facilities and fuel storage make horrible terrorist targets. The facilities are explosion hardened by design, and spent fuel is essentially rocks. It would take a lot of work and explosives to make a weak, uninteresting, highly traceable, not too dangerous "dirty bomb". That requires supplies generally unavailable to terrorist cells, much less cells inside a nuclear nation. It also requires hazardous materials training and technical skills generally unavailable to terrorist organizations, much less embedded in a target area. As has been the case for decades: the largest genuine threat from an action like that would be panic, and overreaction, from a riled up and ignorant population.
Cthulhu_ 9y ago
An accident with spent fuel rods / nuclear waste will happen in our lifetimes, and probably in the US; the US does not have proper nuclear waste disposal because nobody wants to host it. Earlier they'd just dump it in the ocean, but now, it's stashed in the nuclear plants' spent fuel rod basins, waiting (for decades now) for the country to build a proper disposal facility. IIRC the last one was a huge project inside a mountain somewhere.
specialist 9y ago
The ongoing failure to cleanup, mitigate the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is proof enough that we are not (yet?) mature enough to manage nuclear energy. When the contaminates reach the Columbia River, every where downstream becomes uninhabitable. eg Portland OR.

cel1ne 9y ago

Isn't there also the issue of fuel-reserves (uranium etc.) actually not lasting more than about 50-100 years?

eric-hu 9y ago
Yeah, that's an issue too, though again, breeder reactors could extend that number significantly. But the countries that possess that tech don't want to use it widely or share it. Not sure if the former is due to cost or lack of expertise. The latter is definitely due to distrust in humanity.

gizmo 9y ago

I agree that renewables are a very good alternative to nuclear power, but in practice moving away from nuclear means doubling down on coal. The problems with nuclear are political, but the alternatives to nuclear power are mired in political conflict as well. As for your dam bursting scenario, something like that actually happened in the 70s when the Banqiao Dam burst. Nearly 200.000 people died. Fukushima had 0 radiation deaths.

cptskippy 9y ago
> Fukushima had 0 radiation deaths. I think making that statement or even the comparison to other types of disasters is a little disingenuous. With most disasters they happen and then they're over in very short order. A nuclear disaster is very slow to unfold and the deaths from radiation related illnesses are not yet fully realized for quite some time. The Chernobyl disaster is still unfolding and even with the latest containment, NSC, having been installed. It will take hundreds of years before we're done with it.
RobAley 9y ago
You can't really say 0 deaths, because no one knows. We don't have good epidemiological models for wide-spread low-level dispersal such as was seen at Fukushima, we already know incidences of cancer and gene mutation don't scale linearly with exposure at low levels. There are also associated deaths from psychological factors of those who were evacuated, lost land / business etc. which will only become apparent in years to come. Dams do have the potential for massive loss of life as you say, and they also suffer from the problem of massive centralisation of capacity (unlike e.g. solar or wind). On the smaller upside, the models related to fatalities are pretty well understood. Perhaps an instant move away from nuclear may need coal, although here in the UK it's gas that has been taking up the slack while the government dilly-dally on whether to build out new nuclear or invest in renewables research (successfully doing neither). I see over the longer term renewables coming up as nuclear is naturally retired at the end of the current plant's lifespan. Solar is now cheaper than coal to built-out in many places, there are other impediments but (generally) lack of public support isn't one of them (compared to coal/nuclear).
- 9y ago

littlestymaar 9y ago

> Maybe all it'd take is a terrorist incident involving nuclear waste. There are so many radiologic sources out there, used for many purposes (medicine, gammagraphy), very dangerous[1] but taken with much less care than nuclear wastes from the nuclear power industry. Stuff like this [2] happen all the time … [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident [2] (in French) https://www.asn.fr/Controler/Actualites-du-controle/Avis-d-incident-hors-installations-nucleaires/Perte-d-une-source-radioactive-scellee https://www.asn.fr/Controler/Actualites-du-controle/Avis-d-i...

wahern 9y ago
Or whatever happened in Russia within the past few weeks: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/10/nuclear-accident-in-russia-or-kazakhstan-sends-radioactive-cloud-over-europe https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/10/nuclear-accide... I kinda agree with your point: terrorists already have considerable access, theoretically, to radioactive materials. In fact, the materials used for medicine and science are in many ways much more dangerous from a public health perspective given their short, energetic half-lives. The only substantial, long-term danger from terrorists is to the financial viability of nuclear power. Nobody cares about incidents like the above. But if it were tied to terrorism somehow it would be all over the news and nuclear stocks would plummet. Similarly, for a terrorist incident involving medical use even anti-nuclear activists would have more nuanced reactions, whereas if it involved nuclear power such an incident would herald the end of the world.
- bonesss 9y ago
  Nuclear facilities aren't really dependent on market perception to keep their stock prices high - they sell power. The terrorists won't do a better job of slandering fission than the oil & gas companies have done, and nuclear facilities and fuel storage make horrible terrorist targets. The facilities are explosion hardened by design, and spent fuel is essentially rocks. It would take a lot of work and explosives to make a weak, uninteresting, highly traceable, not too dangerous "dirty bomb". That requires supplies generally unavailable to terrorist cells, much less cells inside a nuclear nation. It also requires hazardous materials training and technical skills generally unavailable to terrorist organizations, much less embedded in a target area. As has been the case for decades: the largest genuine threat from an action like that would be panic, and overreaction, from a riled up and ignorant population.

Cthulhu_ 9y ago

An accident with spent fuel rods / nuclear waste will happen in our lifetimes, and probably in the US; the US does not have proper nuclear waste disposal because nobody wants to host it. Earlier they'd just dump it in the ocean, but now, it's stashed in the nuclear plants' spent fuel rod basins, waiting (for decades now) for the country to build a proper disposal facility. IIRC the last one was a huge project inside a mountain somewhere.

specialist 9y ago

The ongoing failure to cleanup, mitigate the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is proof enough that we are not (yet?) mature enough to manage nuclear energy. When the contaminates reach the Columbia River, every where downstream becomes uninhabitable. eg Portland OR.