5 ms·

I'm sympathetic to the worries of a local population about being exposed to a nuclear disaster. The thought of radiation effecting you, your friends and family

I'm sympathetic to the worries of a local population about being exposed to a nuclear disaster. The thought of radiation effecting you, your friends and family is horrifying. Where I diverge from the article is the opinions of the anti-nuclear activists, where they say "It is time to bring nuclear energy to an end". I realize that nuclear power is scary and that this particular reactor may have a higher than average risk profile. However, where they lose me is the alternative. There, currently, is no viable alternative to nuclear that provides the same safety and econimic benefits, not to mention environmental pros of nuclear. Simply not liking something is not enough reason to get rid of it. Who knows maybe a new, safer plant would have been built if they were allowed, but the people voted against it. I find this type of reasoning problematic, it has somehow become common (or I'm just realizing its happening) to rally against something without considering the alternatives that would have to replace it.

ThomPete 8y ago
Nuclear is the safest, greenest, most scalable, most reliable and plentiful energy form we have. More people die every year from Coal than have died from Nuclear in it's entire history. More people die every year of setting up solar and wind than of nuclear. I could go on. The fear of nuclear is absurd and 100% due to the success of a mostly anti humanist environmental movement and the completely un-scientific political debate that surrounds this (which also have found it's way into the climate debate) It's really quite sad.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  Installing solar cells probably kills more than nuclear does. Edit: because people fall off roofs.
- fossuser 8y ago
  Nuclear failures are different - they make an entire area uninhabitable for hundreds of years and they're very difficult to clean up without getting a lot of people killed.
  - ThomPete 8y ago
    Making a small area uninhabitable vs killing millions a year, i know where i take my chances. Chernobyl killed almost no one, fukushima killed almost no one. Mother nature kill more people in a day than have died from all nuclear disasters together. You really have the proportions wrong in such a fundamental way, unfortunately supported by media, politicians and environmentalist.
    - adetrest 8y ago
      Chernobyl killed a lot of people. Even today, more people than ever get thyroid cancer and disorders thanks to Chernobyl. While very few people were killed by the explosion itself, millions were affected and died from the event's consequences.
      - ThomPete 8y ago
        No it didnt kill a lot and i would urge you to find that evidence. Furthermore the amount of people who died from chernobyl in all the time after is a fraction of the people who dies of natural phenomena from nature every year, add on top of that the other reasons people die and chernobyl is not even worth mentioning. Again you guys have your proportions completely wrong at a fundamental level.
        lowry 8y ago
        IIRC, the number of direct deaths was around 100, including a helicopter crew that crashed on site a few days later.
      - jabl 8y ago
        The consensus view as reported by WHO estimates around 4000 in total will eventually die due to Chernobyl. Not millions.
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    Coal mining makes large areas uninhabitable. Chernobyl and Fukishima made areas uninhabitable for humans, but they seem to be gardens for flora and fauna (because people aren't bothering them).
- CaptainZapp 8y ago
  I'd wager that the ex inhabitents of the Fukushima region disagree. And this was Japan. You can't accuse them of being a bunch of Vodka swilling engineers that misjudged the signalling of a couple of dials because they were drunk. The problem is that the consequences of a nuclear catastrophy are horendous and in the hands of profit seeking, private companies with a potential tendency to cut corners it gets outright dangerous. The fear of nuclear is absurd and 100% due to the success of a mostly anti humanist environmental movement and the completely un-scientific political debate that surrounds this You don't know me. You have no idea who I am or how I form my opinions. You just essentially judge anbody a manipulated, non-thinking idiot who disagrees with your point of view. Now that's rally quite sad.
  - ThomPete 8y ago
    i dont have to know you, i just have to look at the facts. You are welcome to present facts that supports your position but i wont hold my breath.
- SuoDuanDao 8y ago
  While the danger of installing solar cells is a good point, I suspect most working class neighborhoods would rather have these high-risk, well-paying jobs for a lot of young people than have a much smaller number of people running a nuclear plant at some remote location. Concentration of capital is also a risk. I would add that the problems of nuclear are mostly self-inflicted and due to an unwillingness to admit to its own shortcomings. To give you an example, a Nuclear physics professor told my class, with a straight face, that nuclear plants were designed so well that one could expect a catastrophic failure no more than once every thousand or so years. Since the actual frequency of catastrophic failures has been more like one in every twenty years or so, his model was clearly off by orders of magnitude - but he hadn't updated it! Nuclear has probably the largest expert problem of any industry I've encountered, it's full of smart people living in a completely different world than the 'un-scientific' public they look down their noses at. If Nuclear is to fulfill its potential the people in the field need to do some painful introspection and recognize that the uncertainties in their models are actually much larger than they'd like to believe. I'd recommend any book by Taleb if you think that's an avenue worth pursueing.
  - ThomPete 8y ago
    I have read his books.
king_phil 8y ago
This ("there's no alternative") seems not to be true at all: In Germany, 13% of our energy is nuclear energy. Only 13%. We're a net exporter of energy, big time, so we could (almost) disconnect nuclear power right now, if we didn't want to export energy to our neighbours. We're at 52 TWh (tera whatt hours) export per year right now. In the last 18 years we've gone from 143 TWh (2000) to 92 TWh (2018) per year nulcear energy generation. In the same time, wind energy alone has added 160 TWh per year, so that alone is more than enough to compensate. There is another 105 TWh from water, sun & bio gas that we added. But wind energy alone is not even close to fully captured. Thing is: each nuclear energy plant in Germany right now makes more than 1 million € per day in profits. Each plant. If you'd have that plant as an energy producer, would you take it offline?
- ThomPete 8y ago
  This summer germany fired up coal to deliver energy to Denmark because there was no wind. Germanys energypolicy is a disaster in so many ways. France gets around 70% of its energy from nuclear, they not germany should be applaused.
  - martinald 8y ago
    Agreed entirely. Also Germany is experincing massive swings in wholesale cost as wind and solar resource comes and goes, with huge negative prices in summer especially. Negative prices may sound good but in reality it is causing chaos with backup generation and the economics of the grid. Also keep in mind that the carbon mass per kWh in Germany has been rising recently, because of all the dirty brown coal that is getting burnt when wind and solar generation is low (instead of nuclear). Add this with some of the most expensive consumer prices in the world and very few people would recommend following Germany's model.
  - nmehner 8y ago
    How is it the fault of german energy policy if Denmark needs electricity? France is not free from problems either: https://www.reuters.com/article/europe-power-supply/germany-powers-france-in-cold-despite-nuclear-u-turn-idUSL5E8DD87020120214 https://www.reuters.com/article/europe-power-supply/germany-...
village-idiot 8y ago
People fear large meltdowns, but easily overlook the millions of premature deaths that power sources like coal cause.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- snibs 8y ago
  "People" Here's the thing. Nuclear power isn't automatic. It isn't static. It isn't founded on anything so reliable or durable as, say The Pyramids of Egypt or South America. We don't build these things to last thousands of years. We build them to last a few decades. And the people that run them? You can select dependable people, but no one seems to be able to quantify the objective details that make for an ideal nuclear engineer. Is there an unlimited supply? What if market forces apply pressure to our feedstock of nuclear engineers? How do you know there will always be people to tend the flame? Look at New York City's MTA and its subway system. There are people willing to spend time running those trains and maintaining those tunnels and booths, but how much skill does that require, and how much does it cost? Given the option to take on a role operating a train as an engineer on an NYC subway line (pick any line), underground in smelly, toxic soot covered tunnels inhabited by roaches, rats and bums all urinating and defecating as needed, drunks on the weekends, commuters punching and fighting each other in the morning and on the way home during rush hours, 12 hours a day for the rest of your life, which other jobs would you take first, provided matching pay? Garbage man? Dishwasher? Short order cook? Professional baseball player? Basketball player? Porn star? Cashier? Branch manager at a bank? Librarian? Truck driver? Now perform the same exercise for nuclear engineer. Nevermind the science, What about the social forces? The human factors are the issue. If it were as simple as stacking bricks and leaving them where they are, with a failure mode rendering the system dead and little more than an explorable landmark, without consequence no one would complain. But that's not what happens when these things fail. If the potential is so valuable, why not build them with all the reverance of an international landmark? People can see through this fact. Such a plan will never see the light of day. Nuclear plants will always be bult with all the charm of an American public school. A place with all the charm of a child prison, running on a razor thin margin. If the power they can produce is so plentiful, why are they not built to lend the impression of an unlimited budget?
trevyn 8y ago
Agreed, "nuclear" is not one unique category -- modern reactor designs exist that are considerably safer in failure scenarios: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety
lmilcin 8y ago
I understand this article is mainly concerned with a particular power plant that may have its potential structural defects downplayed due to financial reasons.

ThomPete 8y ago

Nuclear is the safest, greenest, most scalable, most reliable and plentiful energy form we have. More people die every year from Coal than have died from Nuclear in it's entire history. More people die every year of setting up solar and wind than of nuclear. I could go on. The fear of nuclear is absurd and 100% due to the success of a mostly anti humanist environmental movement and the completely un-scientific political debate that surrounds this (which also have found it's way into the climate debate) It's really quite sad.

village-idiot 8y ago
Installing solar cells probably kills more than nuclear does. Edit: because people fall off roofs.
fossuser 8y ago
Nuclear failures are different - they make an entire area uninhabitable for hundreds of years and they're very difficult to clean up without getting a lot of people killed.
- ThomPete 8y ago
  Making a small area uninhabitable vs killing millions a year, i know where i take my chances. Chernobyl killed almost no one, fukushima killed almost no one. Mother nature kill more people in a day than have died from all nuclear disasters together. You really have the proportions wrong in such a fundamental way, unfortunately supported by media, politicians and environmentalist.
  - adetrest 8y ago
    Chernobyl killed a lot of people. Even today, more people than ever get thyroid cancer and disorders thanks to Chernobyl. While very few people were killed by the explosion itself, millions were affected and died from the event's consequences.
    - ThomPete 8y ago
      No it didnt kill a lot and i would urge you to find that evidence. Furthermore the amount of people who died from chernobyl in all the time after is a fraction of the people who dies of natural phenomena from nature every year, add on top of that the other reasons people die and chernobyl is not even worth mentioning. Again you guys have your proportions completely wrong at a fundamental level.
      - lowry 8y ago
        IIRC, the number of direct deaths was around 100, including a helicopter crew that crashed on site a few days later.
    - jabl 8y ago
      The consensus view as reported by WHO estimates around 4000 in total will eventually die due to Chernobyl. Not millions.
- WalterBright 8y ago
  Coal mining makes large areas uninhabitable. Chernobyl and Fukishima made areas uninhabitable for humans, but they seem to be gardens for flora and fauna (because people aren't bothering them).
CaptainZapp 8y ago
I'd wager that the ex inhabitents of the Fukushima region disagree. And this was Japan. You can't accuse them of being a bunch of Vodka swilling engineers that misjudged the signalling of a couple of dials because they were drunk. The problem is that the consequences of a nuclear catastrophy are horendous and in the hands of profit seeking, private companies with a potential tendency to cut corners it gets outright dangerous. The fear of nuclear is absurd and 100% due to the success of a mostly anti humanist environmental movement and the completely un-scientific political debate that surrounds this You don't know me. You have no idea who I am or how I form my opinions. You just essentially judge anbody a manipulated, non-thinking idiot who disagrees with your point of view. Now that's rally quite sad.
- ThomPete 8y ago
  i dont have to know you, i just have to look at the facts. You are welcome to present facts that supports your position but i wont hold my breath.
SuoDuanDao 8y ago
While the danger of installing solar cells is a good point, I suspect most working class neighborhoods would rather have these high-risk, well-paying jobs for a lot of young people than have a much smaller number of people running a nuclear plant at some remote location. Concentration of capital is also a risk. I would add that the problems of nuclear are mostly self-inflicted and due to an unwillingness to admit to its own shortcomings. To give you an example, a Nuclear physics professor told my class, with a straight face, that nuclear plants were designed so well that one could expect a catastrophic failure no more than once every thousand or so years. Since the actual frequency of catastrophic failures has been more like one in every twenty years or so, his model was clearly off by orders of magnitude - but he hadn't updated it! Nuclear has probably the largest expert problem of any industry I've encountered, it's full of smart people living in a completely different world than the 'un-scientific' public they look down their noses at. If Nuclear is to fulfill its potential the people in the field need to do some painful introspection and recognize that the uncertainties in their models are actually much larger than they'd like to believe. I'd recommend any book by Taleb if you think that's an avenue worth pursueing.
- ThomPete 8y ago
  I have read his books.

king_phil 8y ago

This ("there's no alternative") seems not to be true at all: In Germany, 13% of our energy is nuclear energy. Only 13%. We're a net exporter of energy, big time, so we could (almost) disconnect nuclear power right now, if we didn't want to export energy to our neighbours. We're at 52 TWh (tera whatt hours) export per year right now. In the last 18 years we've gone from 143 TWh (2000) to 92 TWh (2018) per year nulcear energy generation. In the same time, wind energy alone has added 160 TWh per year, so that alone is more than enough to compensate. There is another 105 TWh from water, sun & bio gas that we added. But wind energy alone is not even close to fully captured. Thing is: each nuclear energy plant in Germany right now makes more than 1 million € per day in profits. Each plant. If you'd have that plant as an energy producer, would you take it offline?

ThomPete 8y ago
This summer germany fired up coal to deliver energy to Denmark because there was no wind. Germanys energypolicy is a disaster in so many ways. France gets around 70% of its energy from nuclear, they not germany should be applaused.
- martinald 8y ago
  Agreed entirely. Also Germany is experincing massive swings in wholesale cost as wind and solar resource comes and goes, with huge negative prices in summer especially. Negative prices may sound good but in reality it is causing chaos with backup generation and the economics of the grid. Also keep in mind that the carbon mass per kWh in Germany has been rising recently, because of all the dirty brown coal that is getting burnt when wind and solar generation is low (instead of nuclear). Add this with some of the most expensive consumer prices in the world and very few people would recommend following Germany's model.
- nmehner 8y ago
  How is it the fault of german energy policy if Denmark needs electricity? France is not free from problems either: https://www.reuters.com/article/europe-power-supply/germany-powers-france-in-cold-despite-nuclear-u-turn-idUSL5E8DD87020120214 https://www.reuters.com/article/europe-power-supply/germany-...

village-idiot 8y ago

People fear large meltdowns, but easily overlook the millions of premature deaths that power sources like coal cause.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
snibs 8y ago
"People" Here's the thing. Nuclear power isn't automatic. It isn't static. It isn't founded on anything so reliable or durable as, say The Pyramids of Egypt or South America. We don't build these things to last thousands of years. We build them to last a few decades. And the people that run them? You can select dependable people, but no one seems to be able to quantify the objective details that make for an ideal nuclear engineer. Is there an unlimited supply? What if market forces apply pressure to our feedstock of nuclear engineers? How do you know there will always be people to tend the flame? Look at New York City's MTA and its subway system. There are people willing to spend time running those trains and maintaining those tunnels and booths, but how much skill does that require, and how much does it cost? Given the option to take on a role operating a train as an engineer on an NYC subway line (pick any line), underground in smelly, toxic soot covered tunnels inhabited by roaches, rats and bums all urinating and defecating as needed, drunks on the weekends, commuters punching and fighting each other in the morning and on the way home during rush hours, 12 hours a day for the rest of your life, which other jobs would you take first, provided matching pay? Garbage man? Dishwasher? Short order cook? Professional baseball player? Basketball player? Porn star? Cashier? Branch manager at a bank? Librarian? Truck driver? Now perform the same exercise for nuclear engineer. Nevermind the science, What about the social forces? The human factors are the issue. If it were as simple as stacking bricks and leaving them where they are, with a failure mode rendering the system dead and little more than an explorable landmark, without consequence no one would complain. But that's not what happens when these things fail. If the potential is so valuable, why not build them with all the reverance of an international landmark? People can see through this fact. Such a plan will never see the light of day. Nuclear plants will always be bult with all the charm of an American public school. A place with all the charm of a child prison, running on a razor thin margin. If the power they can produce is so plentiful, why are they not built to lend the impression of an unlimited budget?

trevyn 8y ago

Agreed, "nuclear" is not one unique category -- modern reactor designs exist that are considerably safer in failure scenarios: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety

lmilcin 8y ago

I understand this article is mainly concerned with a particular power plant that may have its potential structural defects downplayed due to financial reasons.