13 ms·

Nuclear is an incredibly under utilized option which I believe is due to public fear from misinformation. Most people don't realize how much nuclear power we al

• acidburnNSA 8y ago
  Indeed! Nukes provide about 60% of the low-carbon energy in the USA. They emit about 12 gCO2-eq/kWh (vs. 40 for solar PV, 11 for wind, 490 for gas, 820 for coal). They net save millions of lives simply by displacing air polluters. They contain and pay for all their waste (where other energy systems dump their waste right into our lungs where it kills hundreds of thousands per year). Accidents have hurt relatively few people (0 died or will die from Fukushima, while a gas explosion just happened and we already forgot about it). The operating plants now are struggling because fracked gas pulled out the electricity revenue rug below their operating costs, and post-9/11 upgrades have been expensive for operation and maintenance. But the capability of atomic energy is just so darn intriguing it's hard to just give up on fission now, even though it advanced fission has struggled through the years.
  • nostromo 8y ago
    Chernobyl won’t be habitable for 20,000 years. While accidents are rare, with their incredibly high cost (in this case: a city of 50,000 people that cannot be inhabited for a time longer than all of human history), they need to be even rarer.
    • LyndsySimon 8y ago
      Chernobyl was terrible design, and we’ve come a long way. Fukushima would be a better example of a modern design failing, and even then there are much more fault-tolerant designs. We certainly aren’t going to be building any more Chernobyls for commercial power generation.
      • NeutronStar 8y ago
        Fukushima uses a 50 years old design.
      • leeoniya 8y ago
        Japan is somewhat forced to build nuclear plants in a very seismically active zone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Fire
      • cryoshon 8y ago
        chernobyl had known reactor design flaws at the time of the accident. even then, there were designs for fail-safe reactors instead of fail-deadly reactors. those have only improved with time.
      • AngryData 8y ago
        I wouldn't consider Fukishima modern either, it began construction in 1967, with the actual design plans being a bit older. That is like 25 years from the first nuclear reactors, we are now 50 years of research and technology beyond fukishima. Yeah it has had some upgrades, but you can only modify an already existent reactor design so much.
    • nickik 8y ago
      False. There are people living many people in that exclusion zone right now and they are actually fine and don't drop dead of cancer like flies. And lets remember that this was a Soviet design build as a technology to have reactor for nuclear weapons (or at least dual use). Fukushima is the worst thing ever happened in terms of actual western civilian reactors and not a single person died from radiation. Not a single person died in the US from civilian nuclear. It is the safest energy technology in terms of actual data. So yes, it should be saver, but comparatively it is saver then everything else.
      • mixmastamyk 8y ago
        Not a single person died in the US or Japan? Quite misinformed.
        • tehbeard 8y ago
          Care to back that claim up?
          • mixmastamyk 8y ago
            https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/japan-acknowledges-first-radiation-linked-death-out-of-fukushima/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/japan-acknowledges-f... We all know how enthusiastic governments are to admit fault, there are probably many more. One I'm familiar with in the US: "The Sodium Reactor Experiment-SRE was an experimental nuclear reactor that operated at the site from 1957 to 1964 and was the first commercial power plant in the world to experience a core meltdown. There was a decades-long cover-up of the incident by the U.S. Department of Energy." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory#Accidents_and_site_contamination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory#... Many of the workers died in their 40s or earlier, in town most of that generation dead by their 60s of cancer. Appears to still be having an affect: https://www.change.org/p/no-more-kids-with-cancer-clean-up-the-santa-susana-field-lab https://www.change.org/p/no-more-kids-with-cancer-clean-up-t...
            • 8y ago
    • acidburnNSA 8y ago
      First of all, the threat we're up against is global warming and air pollution which is currently killing hundreds of thousands of people, right now, per year. Also, you're assuming a linear no-threshold radiation dose response, which is very hard to find support for at the low dose rates now present at Chernobyl. As someone else in this thread pointed out, that's like assuming hundreds of people would die per year from handshakes due to linear health response to Newton's laws. Indeed, it appears that human presence was more detrimental to life than radiation [1]. [1] https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/060418-chernobyl-wildlife-thirty-year-anniversary-science/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/060418-chernobyl...
      • 7952 8y ago
        The engineering cost of dealing with Fukushima and Chernobyl are aboslutely eye watering. I would agree that the human reaction is sometimes irrational, but that needs to be accepted. Human life is not a lab controlled experiment where people will always behave rationally.
        • NeutronStar 8y ago
          No one is saying to build 70s era nuclear power plants. New nuclear design are way safer than those old designs.
        • acidburnNSA 8y ago
          Ok, but would you agree that we should also expect to not overdo cleanup efforts by several orders of magnitude without reasonable evidence that low-dose radiation is dangerous after collecting multiple decades of data. I don't think infinite-duration irrationality in the face of data is necessary.
          • 7952 8y ago
            A focus of the engineering efforts at Chernobyl and Fukushima are to make sure that higher risk contamination is avoided. So the current radiation impact is not the issue. It is the potential impact that is addressed. I hope that one day Chernobyl and Fukushima can be repopulated, and agree that may be safe. I don't think that makes any difference to the actual cost of the event. Nor, would it be wise to presume that a subsequent event could be safely handled without an evacuation. But that is one for politicians to decide.
    • lisper 8y ago
      > Chernobyl won’t be habitable for 20,000 years. The area around Chernobyl is habitable today. In fact, wildlife is thriving there because humans are staying away.
      • deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      • ArchTypical 8y ago
        "habitable" is not the same as survivable. Generally the term habitable means safe for society, so while you may quibble over what exact standard to use the dangers around Chernobyl are MAGNITUDES higher than the dangers of smoking. More like guaranteeing cancer in <20 years.
        • lisper 8y ago
          Reference? Here's another data point: Even by your definition, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are habitable today, less than 100 years after having been hit by nuclear bombs. Ground zero in those cities are thriving tourist zones. Yes, radiation is dangerous, but the dangers of nuclear power have been VASTLY exaggerated by left-wing propaganda.
          • brianobush 8y ago
            Nagasaki and Hiroshima were both air burst explosions for maximal blast, but didn't contaminate the ground as much as a ground explosion would.
            • lisper 8y ago
              Chernobyl was not a ground explosion either. (Well, OK, it was, but it wasn't a nuclear explosion, it was a steam explosion.)
        • deleted 8y ago
          [deleted]
    • yellowapple 8y ago
      If radiation sickness is your concern, then you're better off replacing coal (which spews radioactive material into the air all day every day) with nuclear (which does not normally, and even with the very few nuclear disasters in Earth's history doesn't do so at anywhere near the scale of coal).
    • credit_guy 8y ago
      20,000 years is way off. Here's a report by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) [1]. The main radio-isotopes after the Chernobyl disaster were (see p. 2): "The total release of radioactive substances was about 14 EBq1 (as of 26 April 1986), which included 1.8 EBq of 131I, 0.085 EBq of 137Cs and other caesium radioisotopes, 0.01EBq of 90Sr and 0.003 EBq of plutonium radioisotopes. The noble gases contributed about 50% of the total release of radioactivity." Iodine-131 has a half-life of only 8 days, and it cleared up long ago. The only going concern is Caesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years, and needs 300 years to go to 1/1000 of the initial levels and 600 years to all but disappear. The other radioisotopes were contained to the location of the reactor. The only one that will be there for millenia is a decay product of Pu-241, namely Am-241 with a half-life of 430 years. However, as stated before, that is localized to the nuclear reactor itself. It will reach a maximum about 100 years after the event (so about 70 years from now). [1] http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1239_web.pdf http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1239_web.pd...
  • Siecje 8y ago
    I don't think it is fair to say that 0 died from Fukushima. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
    • acidburnNSA 8y ago
      You're right. The proper statement is that radiation killed zero people, but fear of radiation did kill.
      • morrad 8y ago
        The first radiation exposure related death was reported a few weeks ago from one of the plant's workers. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45423575 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45423575 Still, your point that nuclear is significantly safer from a community health perspective is correct.
• Krasnol 8y ago
  Well...besides the obvious accidents there is nuclear waste. But luckily you have places where you can make it disappear: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/03/yucca-mountain-congress-works-revive-dormant-nuclear-waste-dump/664153002/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/03/yucca...
  • dotancohen 8y ago
    Does coal not have accidents? And where do you think the waste byproducts of coal go? Take a deep breath.
    • hwillis 8y ago
      Or eat some tuna. Coal has doubled the amount of mercury in the ocean.
      • Krasnol 8y ago
        Not sure where you've been the last decade but people who speak against nuclear power are usually also against coal.
    • Krasnol 8y ago
      Sure does coal also have accidents. A handful people die having it. Even solar plants burn down or a wind mill may fall over. All of this is ridiculous compared to a nuclear fallout. But it says much that you chose coal. Another energy source that is on the way to be abolished. PS. I may have taken too many deep breaths when the Tschernobyl cloud moved over me.
      • saagarjha 8y ago
        > Sure does coal also have accidents. A handful people die having it. > All of this is ridiculous compared to a nuclear fallout. Your response gives me the feeling that you're significantly underestimating the number of deaths caused by power generation using coal. It's not a "handful" of people–it's more like a million people, per year.
• jartelt 8y ago
  Building a new nuclear plant today costs an incredible amount of money and takes many years. The major reason we are not building more of them is that no one wants to sign up for that investment. Many nuclear plants that were built 20 years ago cannot operate profitably at this moment, so even if you could build a new plant for free, it's not a guarantee that it will be profitable. It's simply a better investment to build wind, solar, and natural gas. Maybe next gen modular reactors will be cheaper. But, fear is not the main problem for nuclear. It's cost.
  • yellowapple 8y ago
    A lot of that cost is driven by fear (regulatory requirements, risk of lawsuits/stalling by environmental groups, etc.).
    • logifail 8y ago
      Is there any data for this claim? It seems more likely that no corporation is willing to spend tens of billions building anything with a lifetime of 50+ years without getting someone to guarantee a return on the investment - see Hinkley Point C: "The plant, which has a projected lifetime of sixty years, has an estimated construction cost of between £19.6 billion and £20.3 billion. The National Audit Office estimates the additional cost to consumers (above the estimated market price of electricity) [...] will be £50 billion" [1] Locking in a pricing regime for decades which means consumers will pay £50bn above the market price for electricity? How far we've come in the last 64 years: 1954: "Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter..." [2] 2018: Here's your shiny new nuclear power plant, you'll be paying for it to the tune of £50bn more than the alternatives. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_... [2] Lewis Strauss, then chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Strauss#Electricity_%22too_cheap_to_meter%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Strauss#Electricity_%22t...
      • nickik 8y ago
        Hinkley Point C is an example of high cost because of many of these same reasons. It is legendary in the industry for high cost. Mainly these cost are because of the complexity and scale of the project. The licencing and regulation make the complexity and scale larger. To make mega projects like that efficient you need a trained workforce and that only happens if you build multiple plants. South Korea for example is building these complex plants at very reasonable time and price. They can do this because they have an industry and trained workforce. There has been a lot of study in nuclear economics and learning effects are hugely important. However that means that if a state (France, South Korea) adopts nuclear as a matter of policy and deploys in mass, it can be very cheap. However for other places I think new nuclear is the only hope. Advanced reactor companies are planning to be much smaller and should be build for 1 around billion. So yes, people were overly optimistic in the 1954 but we also have to recognize that nuclear technology development was very much hindered by a large number of factors and that we are deploying the same type of reactors now as 40 years ago. This is a sad state of affairs that hopefully will change.
• PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
  >public fear from misinformation Or just a different view on risks. The risk is much lower, but the worst case is much worse. In my personal view it is far better to use alternatives whose worse case scenario is nowhere near as bad, such as solar, wind, and geothermal.
• radium3d 8y ago
  Curious what your thoughts are on the [lack of] long term storage plan for the worn out and shuttered San Onofre power plant nuclear waste?
• mempko 8y ago
  I have a different sort of fear from nuclear that's a little more nuanced. Earlier this year, in Finland, one of the coldest places, a nuclear power plant had to reduce it's output (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-finland-nuclear-fortum-oyj/warm-sea-water-in-finland-caused-capacity-reduction-in-loviisa-nuclear-plant-idUSKBN1KF2CO https://www.reuters.com/article/us-finland-nuclear-fortum-oy...) because the sea waters got too warm. It's apparent that the planet is warming and my fear is if we pass the tipping point, nuclear simply won't be an option. Both sea level rise and warming waters may make much of the nuclear power plants unusable. However, the real danger is even more stark, which is if we pass the tipping point, I expect it will be very hard for humanity to have organized human life at the scale that we have now, and when nation states begin to fail, who will maintain existing power plants? Who will take the many decades to decommission them if they can't be maintained?
  • ams6110 8y ago
    Pessimists have had this idea that humanity is on the tipping point of collapse for centuries. Progress has been uneven, but the track record is that we do manage to solve problems, advance, and improve our standard of living over the long term.
    • mempko 8y ago
      I'm not a pessimist, the tipping point from climate change is a real concern among scientists and prominent people in our field. Many believe we are only decades from it but there is uncertainty around it. It's not that the tipping point isn't a real possibility, it's that there is uncertainty about the scale and speed of changes, and when such a tipping point can happen. Relevant section from the IPCC. https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch2s2-2-3.html https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch2s2-2... This is also a belief from prominent members of our field like Alan Kay, who helped write Transitions and Tipping Points in Complex Environmental Systems(https://www.nsf.gov/ere/ereweb/ac-ere/nsf6895_ere_report_090809.pdf https://www.nsf.gov/ere/ereweb/ac-ere/nsf6895_ere_report_090...) Are you aware of these arguments? And do you have anything better to counter them than saying "People have been spelling the doom of humanity for centuries!" ?
• pps43 8y ago
  Some of public fear is rational. It doesn't take a degree in statistics to figure out that nuclear disasters happen more often than official estimates of their probability imply.
• hristov 8y ago
  I think most people do realize that. And it scares them. This is certainly the case for me. Oh and before you call me ignorant, I am in fact quite knowledgeable on the subject.