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"It's a trope that Nuclear is failing because of fearmongering." I think it's a large scale astroturfing effort by the nuclear industry (which is huge, with a

"It's a trope that Nuclear is failing because of fearmongering." I think it's a large scale astroturfing effort by the nuclear industry (which is huge, with a very small number of players) and the useful rubes who play along. Nuclear may be a necessary part of the grid mix, but the panacea presented has never remotely been close to reality -- every build takes much longer than promised, and always, with 100% certainty, costs billions more than planned. Every build has maintenance that costs multiples of the claims, operation that is far more expensive, and with waste products that there is still no viable solution for, with an eternity of costs dragging them down. And nuclear only exists because the public subsidizes it by eschewing the need for real insurance (which would be prohibitively expensive otherwise). In every economic sense nuclear has been an enormous boondoggle, and they stopped making them because every energy provider got wise. This has nothing to do with fearmongering or some sort of ignorant public -- quite the contrary, the overwhelming public sentiment had no problem with nuclear -- though that claim frequently appears. It's bizarre.

Veelox 8y ago
>I think it's a large scale astroturfing effort by the nuclear industry Just to be clear, you think that the nuclear industry is paying people to go on line and say positive things about nuclear power? Can I get some kind of source for this claim?
- endorphone 8y ago
  While I led off with "I think", the notion that this is outlandish is a curious response. Every large industry has social media massaging efforts (and nuclear has layers and layers of lobbying and PR groups), and I see no reason why nuclear would be free of this. The recurring "Nuclear is the only hope" posts on various social media sites come with regular frequency. But they also have a number of former well-known figures who are quite literally on their payroll. People like Patrick Moore who they pay to write editorials -- always with the byline that he was a Greenpeace activist (yet never noting that he's paid to do this) -- heralding the wonders of nuclear energy. It's a massive industry, and every plant is tens of billions of dollars, so of course they engage in these efforts.
  - acidburnNSA 8y ago
    The actual reason you hear a lot of broad support for nuclear is that the energy source is simply quite exciting from a physics point of view. There are roughly 2 million times more Joules in a kg of uranium nuclear bonds than in a kg of anything with chemical bonds (like oil, coal, gas) [1]. A nuclear reactor can operate for decades, powering a city on a few dump-trucks of fuel with no air pollution and no carbon emissions. The imaginations of tech-friendly people run wild with this pure-physics advantage, and one can't help but wonder if it's possible to harness this energy source successfully for the benefit of an enterprising mankind. I am one such person who let my imagination run wild. I then spent a decade getting a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering, and then spent another decade trying to develop advanced nuclear reactors. I have dozens upon dozens of friends and colleagues who feel the same way, mostly to help solve the climate change and energy poverty issues. This is not some cynical PR campaign. This is young, smart, energetic, and excited people trying to make the best of the world's natural resources through advanced technology. The nuclear industry is famously pathetic with PR (the old guard think it's best to hide and hope anti-nuclear forces will go away). Can you even think of one pro-nuclear advertisement you've ever seen? Or a positive portrayal in a movie? Or in the news? I cannot. All I can see is Captain Planet and MacGyver and The Simpsons and all the monster movies that show nuclear as some dark scary force with a bunch of environment-hating goons dumping ooze into the river. Mix this with magnitudes of pure ignorance in the difference between nuclear weapons waste (ooze, river, Hanford, Mayak) and commercial nuclear waste (solid, ceramic, like a teacup, dry casks, never hurt a soul), and you've got yourself a nuclear PR issue that needs some grassroots help. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_densities_of_common_energy_storage_materials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_densitie...
  - jplayer01 8y ago
    And I'm sure you're just being paid by the green energy lobby. Isn't is curious how "popular" green energy has suddenly become? It seems incredibly suspicious. It can obviously only be astroturfing.
yellowapple 8y ago
> every build takes much longer than promised, and always, with 100% certainty, costs billions more than planned. That's true of pretty much every large infrastructure project in the US (and probably outside the US, but I'm less familiar with that side of things). Nuclear reactors are hardly unique in that regard.
- dv_dt 8y ago
  There was a discussion on HN about a year ago about how the US seems to get less for it's money on subway station construction than other nations. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16259620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16259620
  - Ericson2314 8y ago
    Yes all large infra hits similar issues here.
com2kid 8y ago
Nuclear waste only gets talked about because it is visible. Waste that goes into the air? Waste from mines in third world countries? Out of sight out of mind. Nuclear waste is easily containable, and the country that generates the power has to pay for it. Not only that, but newer reactor designs can take existing nuclear waste in, outputting energy and a smaller pile of waste.
acidburnNSA 8y ago
To postulate a detachment of the economics of nuclear from public perception very hard to justify in my opinion. Certainly nuclear has been expensive to build and operate, and the industry is by no means innocent in this. On the other hand, it's extremely regulated, and the bureaucracy built up makes it very expensive, for example, to make a routine change during construction from the blueprints. No other industry is as regulated as nuclear. During operation it's the same way. You can spend many person-months dealing with corrective action procedures that are mandated, etc. Many of these are considered by the industry to not actually affect safety. For instance the NRC finds like 22,000 "green" findings and a few hundred "white" ones per year. The white ones have low safety significance. Yet, the paperwork and follow-up is nearly crippling. That's good right? Because nuclear is dangerous? Wrong. Commercial nuclear over its 60 years of commercial operation has killed as many people as coal (operating as designed) kills every single day. Every time a nuclear plant shuts down, more people die because of increased air pollution. It's not rational. It's regulated so much because people are afraid of it. It's expensive entirely because of fearmongering.
- adrianN 8y ago
  It could very well be that nuclear is so safe because of all the bureaucracy that is required. Its safety record is not a good argument for abolishing the red tape. The fact is that failure scenarios of nuclear plants are very dangerous.
  - acidburnNSA 8y ago
    Are they? Tmi was before the red tape was excessive and Fukushima was a huge meltdown from a massive tsunami. How many people died from the radiation released from both combined? The answer is zero. I'm not saying we go non-regulated. I'm saying the current regs may be too much. I'd argue that climate change is now more of a threat than more carbon-free nuclear plants.
    - tracker1 8y ago
      Isn't Fukishima still leaking into the Pacific? And hasn't the world had to redefine "safe" measures and recommendations for pregnant women and children to abstain from ocean fish because of it? Long term effects could be very bad. I'm actually in favor of more nuclear power in the U.S. mainland. But certain locations are definitely more or less safe than others. I'm also in favor of streamlining a lot of regulation, if those responsible for a human error based disaster (including managers up to the president/ceo of contsruction/management org) potentially being hanged as a result (not shot, not electric, not chemical injection, hanged till dead).
kortilla 8y ago
>I think it's a large scale astroturfing effort by the nuclear industry Either you don’t know what astroturfing means or you believe in a conspiracy there is no evidence of (nuclear companies faking HN commenter support for nuclear). Either way, this adds nothing to a conversation because it gives reasons for people on any side of the argument to just ignore any material facts or logic. Rather than assuming that everyone who supports nuclear is a fake account or a shill, perhaps you should try to address arguments directly? >This has nothing to do with fearmongering or some sort of ignorant public That’s incorrect. Yucca Mountain is an example. The reactions to Fukushima on the news were another. The Diablo plant that was closed early has been consistently plagued by protests based on irrational fears. You seem to think that a majority of people supporting nuclear is relevant. It’s not considering the tiny percentage of people required to throw up NIMBY roadblocks at all levels of government. Example: Despite their tiny population, anti vaxxers are a major problem.
- endorphone 8y ago
  With enough effort pretty soon you have a good foundation of useful rubes who will repeat your claims ad nausea as fact. The claim that nuclear has mostly come to a halt because of fearmongering is one such claim, easily and completely disproven with even the most cursory of analysis. Somehow it comes back from the dead as if it's just those pesky fearmongers, and not nuclear's horrid history (not in accidents or deaths, where it has done spectacularly, but in pure economics), that's to blame. Most nuclear builds in the west saw extraordinarily little opposition. Ever. We saw a massive spike in builds that went on for a few decades, but it slowly sputtered to a halt because of real-world economics and utilities becoming jaded. Economics that saw that nuclear was overhyped, and the process around it (a process necessary for a platform that can cause enormous economic and ecological damage if it goes awry) made it much less of a win. Not one nuclear plant has been delayed or not built because of the Yucca Mountain issue (which is a classic issue where you're asking a jurisdiction to take the problems with none of the benefits). Dry cask storage is doing fine. We're just entering the period where nuclear power plants are nearing end of life stages, where countless billions in costs are going to come due that everyone just whistled and looked the other way about. The massive nuclear hype was courtesy of the 1950s style new age everything is better enthusiasm, and was critical for building out the grid, and is still a very important part of the mix. However they aren't being built because of some soccer mom nattering about Fukushima, but instead because the people who run the energy grid are choosing much less expensive options. Wind and solar are much less expensive full stop, and gas turbines are cheaper because no one has to pay for the carbon released, which has its own problems that we're going to pay a heavy price for.

Veelox 8y ago

>I think it's a large scale astroturfing effort by the nuclear industry Just to be clear, you think that the nuclear industry is paying people to go on line and say positive things about nuclear power? Can I get some kind of source for this claim?

endorphone 8y ago
While I led off with "I think", the notion that this is outlandish is a curious response. Every large industry has social media massaging efforts (and nuclear has layers and layers of lobbying and PR groups), and I see no reason why nuclear would be free of this. The recurring "Nuclear is the only hope" posts on various social media sites come with regular frequency. But they also have a number of former well-known figures who are quite literally on their payroll. People like Patrick Moore who they pay to write editorials -- always with the byline that he was a Greenpeace activist (yet never noting that he's paid to do this) -- heralding the wonders of nuclear energy. It's a massive industry, and every plant is tens of billions of dollars, so of course they engage in these efforts.
- acidburnNSA 8y ago
  The actual reason you hear a lot of broad support for nuclear is that the energy source is simply quite exciting from a physics point of view. There are roughly 2 million times more Joules in a kg of uranium nuclear bonds than in a kg of anything with chemical bonds (like oil, coal, gas) [1]. A nuclear reactor can operate for decades, powering a city on a few dump-trucks of fuel with no air pollution and no carbon emissions. The imaginations of tech-friendly people run wild with this pure-physics advantage, and one can't help but wonder if it's possible to harness this energy source successfully for the benefit of an enterprising mankind. I am one such person who let my imagination run wild. I then spent a decade getting a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering, and then spent another decade trying to develop advanced nuclear reactors. I have dozens upon dozens of friends and colleagues who feel the same way, mostly to help solve the climate change and energy poverty issues. This is not some cynical PR campaign. This is young, smart, energetic, and excited people trying to make the best of the world's natural resources through advanced technology. The nuclear industry is famously pathetic with PR (the old guard think it's best to hide and hope anti-nuclear forces will go away). Can you even think of one pro-nuclear advertisement you've ever seen? Or a positive portrayal in a movie? Or in the news? I cannot. All I can see is Captain Planet and MacGyver and The Simpsons and all the monster movies that show nuclear as some dark scary force with a bunch of environment-hating goons dumping ooze into the river. Mix this with magnitudes of pure ignorance in the difference between nuclear weapons waste (ooze, river, Hanford, Mayak) and commercial nuclear waste (solid, ceramic, like a teacup, dry casks, never hurt a soul), and you've got yourself a nuclear PR issue that needs some grassroots help. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_densities_of_common_energy_storage_materials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_densitie...
- jplayer01 8y ago
  And I'm sure you're just being paid by the green energy lobby. Isn't is curious how "popular" green energy has suddenly become? It seems incredibly suspicious. It can obviously only be astroturfing.

yellowapple 8y ago

> every build takes much longer than promised, and always, with 100% certainty, costs billions more than planned. That's true of pretty much every large infrastructure project in the US (and probably outside the US, but I'm less familiar with that side of things). Nuclear reactors are hardly unique in that regard.

dv_dt 8y ago
There was a discussion on HN about a year ago about how the US seems to get less for it's money on subway station construction than other nations. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16259620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16259620
- Ericson2314 8y ago
  Yes all large infra hits similar issues here.

com2kid 8y ago

Nuclear waste only gets talked about because it is visible. Waste that goes into the air? Waste from mines in third world countries? Out of sight out of mind. Nuclear waste is easily containable, and the country that generates the power has to pay for it. Not only that, but newer reactor designs can take existing nuclear waste in, outputting energy and a smaller pile of waste.

acidburnNSA 8y ago

To postulate a detachment of the economics of nuclear from public perception very hard to justify in my opinion. Certainly nuclear has been expensive to build and operate, and the industry is by no means innocent in this. On the other hand, it's extremely regulated, and the bureaucracy built up makes it very expensive, for example, to make a routine change during construction from the blueprints. No other industry is as regulated as nuclear. During operation it's the same way. You can spend many person-months dealing with corrective action procedures that are mandated, etc. Many of these are considered by the industry to not actually affect safety. For instance the NRC finds like 22,000 "green" findings and a few hundred "white" ones per year. The white ones have low safety significance. Yet, the paperwork and follow-up is nearly crippling. That's good right? Because nuclear is dangerous? Wrong. Commercial nuclear over its 60 years of commercial operation has killed as many people as coal (operating as designed) kills every single day. Every time a nuclear plant shuts down, more people die because of increased air pollution. It's not rational. It's regulated so much because people are afraid of it. It's expensive entirely because of fearmongering.

adrianN 8y ago
It could very well be that nuclear is so safe because of all the bureaucracy that is required. Its safety record is not a good argument for abolishing the red tape. The fact is that failure scenarios of nuclear plants are very dangerous.
- acidburnNSA 8y ago
  Are they? Tmi was before the red tape was excessive and Fukushima was a huge meltdown from a massive tsunami. How many people died from the radiation released from both combined? The answer is zero. I'm not saying we go non-regulated. I'm saying the current regs may be too much. I'd argue that climate change is now more of a threat than more carbon-free nuclear plants.
  - tracker1 8y ago
    Isn't Fukishima still leaking into the Pacific? And hasn't the world had to redefine "safe" measures and recommendations for pregnant women and children to abstain from ocean fish because of it? Long term effects could be very bad. I'm actually in favor of more nuclear power in the U.S. mainland. But certain locations are definitely more or less safe than others. I'm also in favor of streamlining a lot of regulation, if those responsible for a human error based disaster (including managers up to the president/ceo of contsruction/management org) potentially being hanged as a result (not shot, not electric, not chemical injection, hanged till dead).

kortilla 8y ago

>I think it's a large scale astroturfing effort by the nuclear industry Either you don’t know what astroturfing means or you believe in a conspiracy there is no evidence of (nuclear companies faking HN commenter support for nuclear). Either way, this adds nothing to a conversation because it gives reasons for people on any side of the argument to just ignore any material facts or logic. Rather than assuming that everyone who supports nuclear is a fake account or a shill, perhaps you should try to address arguments directly? >This has nothing to do with fearmongering or some sort of ignorant public That’s incorrect. Yucca Mountain is an example. The reactions to Fukushima on the news were another. The Diablo plant that was closed early has been consistently plagued by protests based on irrational fears. You seem to think that a majority of people supporting nuclear is relevant. It’s not considering the tiny percentage of people required to throw up NIMBY roadblocks at all levels of government. Example: Despite their tiny population, anti vaxxers are a major problem.

endorphone 8y ago
With enough effort pretty soon you have a good foundation of useful rubes who will repeat your claims ad nausea as fact. The claim that nuclear has mostly come to a halt because of fearmongering is one such claim, easily and completely disproven with even the most cursory of analysis. Somehow it comes back from the dead as if it's just those pesky fearmongers, and not nuclear's horrid history (not in accidents or deaths, where it has done spectacularly, but in pure economics), that's to blame. Most nuclear builds in the west saw extraordinarily little opposition. Ever. We saw a massive spike in builds that went on for a few decades, but it slowly sputtered to a halt because of real-world economics and utilities becoming jaded. Economics that saw that nuclear was overhyped, and the process around it (a process necessary for a platform that can cause enormous economic and ecological damage if it goes awry) made it much less of a win. Not one nuclear plant has been delayed or not built because of the Yucca Mountain issue (which is a classic issue where you're asking a jurisdiction to take the problems with none of the benefits). Dry cask storage is doing fine. We're just entering the period where nuclear power plants are nearing end of life stages, where countless billions in costs are going to come due that everyone just whistled and looked the other way about. The massive nuclear hype was courtesy of the 1950s style new age everything is better enthusiasm, and was critical for building out the grid, and is still a very important part of the mix. However they aren't being built because of some soccer mom nattering about Fukushima, but instead because the people who run the energy grid are choosing much less expensive options. Wind and solar are much less expensive full stop, and gas turbines are cheaper because no one has to pay for the carbon released, which has its own problems that we're going to pay a heavy price for.