5 ms·

Ah, the classic "this old power plant design had this failure mode, therefore all nuclear does this" argument. Do you know when Fukushima was built and what yea

Ah, the classic "this old power plant design had this failure mode, therefore all nuclear does this" argument. Do you know when Fukushima was built and what year the designs were drafted for it?

fovc 8y ago
I don't know enough here to comment on who's right, but when the magnitude of catastrophic failure is large enough, model error is appreciably important. So in those cases past experience is a very important input into the decision, even if not perfectly correlated. If anything, it proves that identifying all failure modes is challenging, and theoretically safe is not the same as practically safe.
- bluGill 8y ago
  The magnitude of the error has been overstated though. There were issues, but a coal powerplant is worse for public health than the known disasters.
  - Teknoman117 8y ago
    Hydroelectic as well technically. A set of hydroelectric dam failures in China in 1975 killed more people directly from the event (171,000) than is estimated for the direct and future deaths caused from Chernobyl and Fukushima combined.
- gh02t 8y ago
  "So in those cases past experience is a very important input into the decision, even if not perfectly correlated." Of course it is, which is why modern reactor designs have incorporated safety features based on these accidents and older designs have been retrofitted (with some exceptions that are legitimately concerning). It's entirely true that it is impossible to predict every mode of catastrophic failure, but that does not mean it's impossible to create designs that are resilient to unplanned disasters. No type of power plant can be perfectly safe, but for assessing practical safety records, in terms of deaths / TWh generated, even estimating conservatively nuclear power is safer than any other source of power (including wind and solar). Some references for this: https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw... https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all...
xiphias2 8y ago
The Boing accidents showed that technological progress doesn't help in minimizing errors, as there's always a higher incentive of minimizing costs in the implementation, even if the plan is safe. A very important thing we can do is to limit the possible worst case scenario.
- astrodust 8y ago
  You do that by having strict standards. Boeing was allowed to skirt the standards because the FAA is in shambles.
  - bronson 8y ago
    And the DOE & NRC aren't?
    - InitialLastName 8y ago
      Especially, let's not forget, when the person running the DOE doesn't think it should exist.
  - xiphias2 8y ago
    Do you have any evidence that the same thing can't happen to a nuclear reactor? (Actually there are quite a few for the opposite as far as I know)
    - astrodust 8y ago
      It probably can, but there's a fundamental difference between a nuclear reactor and an airplane. There's a handful of nuclear reactors compared to planes, and new nuclear reactor designs, where there's an opportunity to cut corners, are not being introduced at the same rate as new plane designs. A reactor is a large, heavy, stationary thing. Economic concerns exist, but they're not going to make engineering decisions based on weight like you would in a plane where every kilogram of material costs a fortune in fuel over the lifetime of the plane. An extra chunk of concrete in a nuclear plant costs nothing, operationally speaking. We're just lucky that the planes aren't nuclear despite many wildly ill-advised attempts to make this a reality.
mixmastamyk 8y ago
When humans are involved there are always failure modes.
AngryData 8y ago
I agree, Fukishima was designed about 15 years after nuclear power was first invented, it isn't that far off from complaining about how unsafe cars are in crashes using Model-Ts as an example. Fukushima should have been decommissioned before it was even 'completed' but because of the political barriers in building a new nuclear plant(s) they just stuck with it since it had already got over the regulation hurdles. I think our problems with nuclear power are 95% political and maybe 5% or less technological. Canada for example has nuclear plants that use a neutron moderating coolant. If they lose coolant, the reaction stops. Unlike earlier designs where a loss of coolant lead to overheating and potential explosions. Not to mention new nuclear plants need 6-7 completely independent shutdown/safety features which is unheard of for earlier plants that have at best 1 or 2 emergency shutdown procedures that interfere with each other.

Ah, the classic "this old power plant design had this failure mode, therefore all nuclear does this" argument. Do you know when Fukushima was built and what year the designs were drafted for it?

fovc 8y ago

I don't know enough here to comment on who's right, but when the magnitude of catastrophic failure is large enough, model error is appreciably important. So in those cases past experience is a very important input into the decision, even if not perfectly correlated. If anything, it proves that identifying all failure modes is challenging, and theoretically safe is not the same as practically safe.

bluGill 8y ago
The magnitude of the error has been overstated though. There were issues, but a coal powerplant is worse for public health than the known disasters.
- Teknoman117 8y ago
  Hydroelectic as well technically. A set of hydroelectric dam failures in China in 1975 killed more people directly from the event (171,000) than is estimated for the direct and future deaths caused from Chernobyl and Fukushima combined.
gh02t 8y ago
"So in those cases past experience is a very important input into the decision, even if not perfectly correlated." Of course it is, which is why modern reactor designs have incorporated safety features based on these accidents and older designs have been retrofitted (with some exceptions that are legitimately concerning). It's entirely true that it is impossible to predict every mode of catastrophic failure, but that does not mean it's impossible to create designs that are resilient to unplanned disasters. No type of power plant can be perfectly safe, but for assessing practical safety records, in terms of deaths / TWh generated, even estimating conservatively nuclear power is safer than any other source of power (including wind and solar). Some references for this: https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw... https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all...

xiphias2 8y ago

The Boing accidents showed that technological progress doesn't help in minimizing errors, as there's always a higher incentive of minimizing costs in the implementation, even if the plan is safe. A very important thing we can do is to limit the possible worst case scenario.

astrodust 8y ago
You do that by having strict standards. Boeing was allowed to skirt the standards because the FAA is in shambles.
- bronson 8y ago
  And the DOE & NRC aren't?
  - InitialLastName 8y ago
    Especially, let's not forget, when the person running the DOE doesn't think it should exist.
- xiphias2 8y ago
  Do you have any evidence that the same thing can't happen to a nuclear reactor? (Actually there are quite a few for the opposite as far as I know)
  - astrodust 8y ago
    It probably can, but there's a fundamental difference between a nuclear reactor and an airplane. There's a handful of nuclear reactors compared to planes, and new nuclear reactor designs, where there's an opportunity to cut corners, are not being introduced at the same rate as new plane designs. A reactor is a large, heavy, stationary thing. Economic concerns exist, but they're not going to make engineering decisions based on weight like you would in a plane where every kilogram of material costs a fortune in fuel over the lifetime of the plane. An extra chunk of concrete in a nuclear plant costs nothing, operationally speaking. We're just lucky that the planes aren't nuclear despite many wildly ill-advised attempts to make this a reality.

mixmastamyk 8y ago

When humans are involved there are always failure modes.

AngryData 8y ago

I agree, Fukishima was designed about 15 years after nuclear power was first invented, it isn't that far off from complaining about how unsafe cars are in crashes using Model-Ts as an example. Fukushima should have been decommissioned before it was even 'completed' but because of the political barriers in building a new nuclear plant(s) they just stuck with it since it had already got over the regulation hurdles. I think our problems with nuclear power are 95% political and maybe 5% or less technological. Canada for example has nuclear plants that use a neutron moderating coolant. If they lose coolant, the reaction stops. Unlike earlier designs where a loss of coolant lead to overheating and potential explosions. Not to mention new nuclear plants need 6-7 completely independent shutdown/safety features which is unheard of for earlier plants that have at best 1 or 2 emergency shutdown procedures that interfere with each other.