4 ms·

The two things interact. Because of the 'eco' and other organisation successful 'anti-nuke' organisation any improvement or discussion is made extremely diffic

by nickik 8y ago

The two things interact. Because of the 'eco' and other organisation successful 'anti-nuke' organisation any improvement or discussion is made extremely difficult. I would say its one of the most successful 'campaigns' the 'eco' people have ever pulled. You ask normal people, who don't have a clue about nuclear energy if they support it and 'normal' people will simply say 'no' and the reason is some vague 'dangerous and waste'. Exactly what the messaging from these organisations was for 50 years. In some states, like Australia for example the minister is expressly forbidden by law to even consider a nuclear solution to a environmental or energy problem. In Austria Greenpeace activists surrounded newly build nuclear plant and forced is shutdown (it was replaced by coal but Greenpeace of course doesn't care). In Germany massive anti-war and green movement went strongly anti nuclear and progressively increased pressure against nukes and in a politically opportune moment they managed to shut down the whole industry. In Switzerland we passed a law not even allowing research on nuclear reactors mostly for the same nonsense reasons. You can go back to the original Sierra Club Anti-Nukes, they quite literally had an express strategy to sell one thing 'danger/waste' and they specifically did this to increase regulation in order to make it unprofitable. That is directly stated in their communication. This has been their strategy for 50 years and it has worked on the population and on governments around the world, people are simply misinformed. Of course they could not do it alone, but while they are loud the Oil/Coal lobby is massively against nuclear energy and always has been. You can find that even 40 years ago they cross financed anti-nuclear 'eco' people. The problem with the current landscape is that because of regulation in most countries is basically impossible to bring a new nuclear plant to market. Lots of government money dumped in a few (mostly government) project does not mean that nuclear as a technology is the problem.

lispm 8y ago
> Because of the 'eco' and other organisation successful 'anti-nuke' organisation any improvement or discussion is made extremely difficult. I would say its one of the most successful 'campaigns' the 'eco' people have ever pulled. Nuclear has been sponsored with zillions of government money and lots of pro-nuclear propaganda. We had a discussion about this for two decades. We observed more zillions put into nuclear with ever less return. Germany invested for example into a Thorium-based high-temperature pebble-bed reactor. Guess what? The promised reliability was not there. Even more, the thing was not commercially viable - so the INDUSTRY closed it, not green eco groups. The current public opinion is not the result of green eco fanatics, but because the the nuclear political/industrial/military complex could not demonstrate its commercial viability and because nuclear is fundamentally opposed to a free, decentralized and open society. We've seen the breeder concepts. A disaster. Seen the fate of the breeder in Japan? It was damaged during construction, sitting around for a long time - not because of eco fanatics - because neither government or industry were willing to put more money and work into it. After some time they decided to revive that old reactor - which then had even more problems. Now it will be dismantled. http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2018/04/30-year_plan_approved_to_.html http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2018/04/30-year_plan_approv... Don't tell me eco-fanatics were responsible for this failure. Germany invested into its own breeder. Which is now an amusement park in Kalkar. Another failed project which cost zillions of tax payer money. Germany than had a demonstrator for a nuclear storage site (Asse II). Industry and government were handling it. Water leaks into it. It is unstable. Etc. It now costs zillions to fix that. The result of 'build reactors first and care about storage later' is that nuclear material piles up near reactors. Which was one of the reasons for the cost of the Fukushima event: the spent-fuel pools were full and were located high up in the buildings. You probably have see the desperate attempts to cool these pools from the outside which contributed to the damage of the buildings. We had a stream of these failures. Each time the industry and government came with new proposals. More money poured into it and more failures. Technical failures. Economical failures. And gradually the acceptance for new projects was going down - even among the proponents. Siemens then invested zillions into the development of the French next generation reactor. That reactor turned out to be another problematic project and Siemens (a former proponent of nuclear technology) pulled out of that - because it cost them lots of money. The construction problems of these reactors are real (faulty steel, complex software, ...) and not green eco inventions. These reactors are built in France and Finland in nuclear friendly surroundings - yet they have massive cost increases and time delays... for a current update see here: https://www.ft.com/content/dda39a0c-256e-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d57a0 https://www.ft.com/content/dda39a0c-256e-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d5... The problems costs the industry hundreds of millions and we are not talking about eco propaganda, but real technical problems and delays. Claiming that the failure of the nuclear industry is because of green propaganda, forgets a stream of expensive and failed nuclear projects. In the end the government and industry were not able to demonstrate their capability to handle this complex system - it was fully exposed in Japan, where the reactors are still mostly shutdown - despite massive needs for their electricity. Building them and in this way in an area of high seismic activity was simply a failure. Before Fukushima its reactors were inspected and rated save. After Fukushima multiple failures were contributing to the problems - each single one were unthinkable before: full meltdowns, complete loss of outside energy, tsunami flooding the building, failing emergency electricity, failing electricity to cool spend fuel pools, hydrogen explosions in the building, etc. etc. This thing is a total collapse of any promised safety of these. Now don't tell me that this was an old design - it was claimed safe just weeks before the collapse. Thus undermines any trust into the industry and government - not green eco propaganda. This cleanup will cost several hundred billion dollar and will be extremely hard work for three or four decades.
- nickik 8y ago
  > Nuclear has been sponsored with zillions of government money and lots of pro-nuclear propaganda. Civilian Nuclear industry was always pretty tiny compared to the competition. Funny how all this propaganda was useless as people (including smart people) believe lots of nonsense about nuclear that stems from lies made up by Greenpeace types. I literally talked to a highly educated people who believe utter scientifically false stuff about nuclear because these lies have been embedded so deeply in our culture. I consider it one of the most effective propaganda campaigns ever. I wish the nuclear industry was half as good as Greenpeace at promoting their ideas. > We had a discussion about this for two decades. We observed more zillions put into nuclear with ever less return. Except of course that it is the largest low CO2 energy source and has saved the world from billions of tons of CO2. Counties like France have been at CO2 levels that would basically solve global warming (or as close as you are gone get without replacing transportation fuel) but the rest of the nations did not follow. You seem to assume that I said that every single failure of any nuclear plant ever is the responsibility of the eco people. That is not what I'm saying. The nuclear industry and governments have made tons of bad design choices, in nuclear and lots of other things. The drama made over nuclear power, nuclear waste and so on has thrown a huge wrench into everything nulcear. Its incredibly hard to cite a project. Its incredibly hard to get political support for a project. Its incredibly hard to build a research reactor. Its incredibly hard to even get a licence for anything or specially materials. Its basically impossible to develop a new reactor type. These issue go from research to operation on every level the environment is terrible for nuclear. The West started out making new reactors all the time and the reactors built back then were incredible cost competitive and up to that point nuclear had a speed of adoption unseen by any technology ever. This progress was essentially stop and grind to a halt because > it was fully exposed in Japan, where the reactors are still mostly shutdown Guess what, if you shut down fully function reactors for political reason its not the nuclear industries fault. Japan does not have a great industry but the idea that after Fukushima all nuclear plants had to be shut of was an idiotic political move that killed many more people then it saved (as it saved a grand total of 0 people). > Before Fukushima its reactors were inspected and rated save. The US Regulatory agency told Japan that these reactors were exposed but for political reasons Japan wanted to build on the coast. > Building them and in this way in an area of high seismic activity was simply a failure. False. The reactor didn't care about the seismic activity it had no issue what so ever. In fact had the reactor itself not been shut down, it could have delivered the energy for its own cooling system. > Thus undermines any trust into the industry and government - not green eco propaganda Yeah lets play the lets focus on isolated examples. The nuclear industry global has the least amount of deaths per energy produced. And it has the lest amount of resource use and the least amount of pollution. Basically 0 people died from civilian nuclear in the Western nations, a couple 100 that have long term lower life expectancy. However we build more gas plants, coal plants, wind turbines and so on.

by nickik 8y ago

lispm 8y ago

> Because of the 'eco' and other organisation successful 'anti-nuke' organisation any improvement or discussion is made extremely difficult. I would say its one of the most successful 'campaigns' the 'eco' people have ever pulled. Nuclear has been sponsored with zillions of government money and lots of pro-nuclear propaganda. We had a discussion about this for two decades. We observed more zillions put into nuclear with ever less return. Germany invested for example into a Thorium-based high-temperature pebble-bed reactor. Guess what? The promised reliability was not there. Even more, the thing was not commercially viable - so the INDUSTRY closed it, not green eco groups. The current public opinion is not the result of green eco fanatics, but because the the nuclear political/industrial/military complex could not demonstrate its commercial viability and because nuclear is fundamentally opposed to a free, decentralized and open society. We've seen the breeder concepts. A disaster. Seen the fate of the breeder in Japan? It was damaged during construction, sitting around for a long time - not because of eco fanatics - because neither government or industry were willing to put more money and work into it. After some time they decided to revive that old reactor - which then had even more problems. Now it will be dismantled. http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2018/04/30-year_plan_approved_to_.html http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2018/04/30-year_plan_approv... Don't tell me eco-fanatics were responsible for this failure. Germany invested into its own breeder. Which is now an amusement park in Kalkar. Another failed project which cost zillions of tax payer money. Germany than had a demonstrator for a nuclear storage site (Asse II). Industry and government were handling it. Water leaks into it. It is unstable. Etc. It now costs zillions to fix that. The result of 'build reactors first and care about storage later' is that nuclear material piles up near reactors. Which was one of the reasons for the cost of the Fukushima event: the spent-fuel pools were full and were located high up in the buildings. You probably have see the desperate attempts to cool these pools from the outside which contributed to the damage of the buildings. We had a stream of these failures. Each time the industry and government came with new proposals. More money poured into it and more failures. Technical failures. Economical failures. And gradually the acceptance for new projects was going down - even among the proponents. Siemens then invested zillions into the development of the French next generation reactor. That reactor turned out to be another problematic project and Siemens (a former proponent of nuclear technology) pulled out of that - because it cost them lots of money. The construction problems of these reactors are real (faulty steel, complex software, ...) and not green eco inventions. These reactors are built in France and Finland in nuclear friendly surroundings - yet they have massive cost increases and time delays... for a current update see here: https://www.ft.com/content/dda39a0c-256e-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d57a0 https://www.ft.com/content/dda39a0c-256e-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d5... The problems costs the industry hundreds of millions and we are not talking about eco propaganda, but real technical problems and delays. Claiming that the failure of the nuclear industry is because of green propaganda, forgets a stream of expensive and failed nuclear projects. In the end the government and industry were not able to demonstrate their capability to handle this complex system - it was fully exposed in Japan, where the reactors are still mostly shutdown - despite massive needs for their electricity. Building them and in this way in an area of high seismic activity was simply a failure. Before Fukushima its reactors were inspected and rated save. After Fukushima multiple failures were contributing to the problems - each single one were unthinkable before: full meltdowns, complete loss of outside energy, tsunami flooding the building, failing emergency electricity, failing electricity to cool spend fuel pools, hydrogen explosions in the building, etc. etc. This thing is a total collapse of any promised safety of these. Now don't tell me that this was an old design - it was claimed safe just weeks before the collapse. Thus undermines any trust into the industry and government - not green eco propaganda. This cleanup will cost several hundred billion dollar and will be extremely hard work for three or four decades.

nickik 8y ago
> Nuclear has been sponsored with zillions of government money and lots of pro-nuclear propaganda. Civilian Nuclear industry was always pretty tiny compared to the competition. Funny how all this propaganda was useless as people (including smart people) believe lots of nonsense about nuclear that stems from lies made up by Greenpeace types. I literally talked to a highly educated people who believe utter scientifically false stuff about nuclear because these lies have been embedded so deeply in our culture. I consider it one of the most effective propaganda campaigns ever. I wish the nuclear industry was half as good as Greenpeace at promoting their ideas. > We had a discussion about this for two decades. We observed more zillions put into nuclear with ever less return. Except of course that it is the largest low CO2 energy source and has saved the world from billions of tons of CO2. Counties like France have been at CO2 levels that would basically solve global warming (or as close as you are gone get without replacing transportation fuel) but the rest of the nations did not follow. You seem to assume that I said that every single failure of any nuclear plant ever is the responsibility of the eco people. That is not what I'm saying. The nuclear industry and governments have made tons of bad design choices, in nuclear and lots of other things. The drama made over nuclear power, nuclear waste and so on has thrown a huge wrench into everything nulcear. Its incredibly hard to cite a project. Its incredibly hard to get political support for a project. Its incredibly hard to build a research reactor. Its incredibly hard to even get a licence for anything or specially materials. Its basically impossible to develop a new reactor type. These issue go from research to operation on every level the environment is terrible for nuclear. The West started out making new reactors all the time and the reactors built back then were incredible cost competitive and up to that point nuclear had a speed of adoption unseen by any technology ever. This progress was essentially stop and grind to a halt because > it was fully exposed in Japan, where the reactors are still mostly shutdown Guess what, if you shut down fully function reactors for political reason its not the nuclear industries fault. Japan does not have a great industry but the idea that after Fukushima all nuclear plants had to be shut of was an idiotic political move that killed many more people then it saved (as it saved a grand total of 0 people). > Before Fukushima its reactors were inspected and rated save. The US Regulatory agency told Japan that these reactors were exposed but for political reasons Japan wanted to build on the coast. > Building them and in this way in an area of high seismic activity was simply a failure. False. The reactor didn't care about the seismic activity it had no issue what so ever. In fact had the reactor itself not been shut down, it could have delivered the energy for its own cooling system. > Thus undermines any trust into the industry and government - not green eco propaganda Yeah lets play the lets focus on isolated examples. The nuclear industry global has the least amount of deaths per energy produced. And it has the lest amount of resource use and the least amount of pollution. Basically 0 people died from civilian nuclear in the Western nations, a couple 100 that have long term lower life expectancy. However we build more gas plants, coal plants, wind turbines and so on.