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That's just comparing them with coal to sound great. The three major nuclear accidents do not represent the worst which nuclear plants are capable of. For examp

That's just comparing them with coal to sound great. The three major nuclear accidents do not represent the worst which nuclear plants are capable of. For example we have yet to see what can happen if a nuclear plant is sabotaged - that's not FUD its a real vulnerably of the technology and is a reason why they incur constant exceptional security as well as safety costs. They consume alot of water resource as well, for cooling. Thankfully its an academic debate now anyway, because solar and wind prices are already much cheaper with no end to their continued improvement in sight.

ajuc 7y ago
Normal operation of coal powerplants is more dangerous than the worst accidents we had with nuclear powerplants. Modern nuclear powerplants are much safer than these that had accidents. Yes you have to include the possibility of new accidents - being sabotaged or not. But that possibility needs to be weighed with the probability of it. And it's very low. Meanwhile we completely ignore the 100% sure deaths and radiation caused by coal powerplants. Because we're used to it. BTW sabotaging hydro powerplants can kill hundreds of thousands of people at once. And it's much easier than sabotaging a nuclear powerplant. Get one diver with a swimsuit and give him some TNT. Somehow I haven't seen this used as a counterargument to renewable energy :)
- strainer 7y ago
  For all the stretched comparisons about how safe nuclear can be, the technology is a liability which requires great care and expense to keep secure and safe. Its promotion was competing with and obstructing the promotion of renewables for over a decade past, but its moot now that in the past couple of years the price performance of renewables has become unassailable. There's no point promoting nuclear anymore and arguing about how safe nuclear has been or could be - its more expensive already than wind and solar, materially, environmentally, security-wise and economically. Wind and solar are still on a rapid improvement curve. Nuclear powered heat plants are not futuristic generation options, they're relics from the nuclear arms race.
- Tade0 7y ago
  Yes you have to include the possibility of new accidents - being sabotaged or not. But that possibility needs to be weighed with the probability of it. And it's very low. This is not a case of of risk but uncertainty - very different strategies apply here.
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> For example we have yet to see what can happen if a nuclear plant is sabotaged - that's not FUD That's FUD. What are you proposing is going to happen that would be worse? You can't get a nuclear explosion; the fuel isn't weapons grade. You can get a meltdown and a hydrogen explosion, but that is what happened at Chernobyl. It leaves behind a hot mess and a large cleanup bill but hardly anybody dies. Especially if you're not an obtuse Soviet bureaucracy that dispatches ordinary firefighters to deal with it without adequate training or equipment. > They consume alot of water resource as well, for cooling. Water isn't "consumed", it starts off as H2O and ends up that way. It evaporates and then condenses again somewhere downwind.
- gpm 7y ago
  The soviet response to Chernobyl was in many respects phenomenal. They mobilized hundreds of thousands of people to risk their lives to mitigate it. One effort that stands out as "preventing something much worse" is that there was a risk of a potentially larger secondary explosion from steam buildup. They tunneled under the reactor and injected ~25 tons of liquid nitrogen a day (the tunnel started 6 days after the explosion, and was functional 8 days after the explosion). They had people risk/give their lives swimming in to close valves and pumping water out. Dates from here: http://www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/timeline/ http://www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/timeline/ Also, you can absolutely get a nuclear explosion from a reactor, there is some suggestion that Chernobyl might have been a small one in fact (paper): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00295450.2017.1384269 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00295450.2017.1...
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    > One effort that stands out as "preventing something much worse" is that there was a risk of a potentially larger secondary explosion from steam buildup. A larger conventional explosion would have been linearly worse, not worse rising to a separate category of problem. > Also, you can absolutely get a nuclear explosion from a reactor, there is some suggestion that Chernobyl might have been a small one in fact (paper) This is not what I'm referring to. It's one thing to have a "nuclear explosion" in the sense that the reaction generates enough heat to cause the rapid expansion of gasses which is technically an "explosion". What I'm referring to is the sort of exponential chain reaction that happens in a nuclear weapon, resulting in something on that scale. You have to design for that on purpose to get it. The density and geometry has to be exactly right.
Johnny555 7y ago
Thankfully its an academic debate now anyway, because solar and wind prices are already much cheaper with no end to their continued improvement in sight. Has large scale energy storage been solved? I know there are a number of ways to do grid-scale storage, but are any of them scalable enough to power the entire country from solar and wind? Especially if another "storm of the century" (which seem to be happening more frequently now) reduces solar/wind output from a significant portion of the country so you need to draw deep into storage reserves.
- strainer 7y ago
  > Has large scale energy storage been solved? There are numerous technologies which can currently provide large scale energy storage at cost which is currently competitive in many situations and due to drop rapidly once they are actually required and built in quantity. To mention a few: flow batteries, hydrogen production and generation, carbon neutral biomass fuel, heat storage and conversion batteries including molten salt, enhancement of existing hydro schemes, online EV fleet, active geothermal... besides you know if pushed, even the occasional emergency fossil fuel burn if unprepared. Nuclear plants are not known for their uptime during storms either. Current prices are detailed here, been dropping every year : https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-and-levelized-cost-of-storage-2018/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...

ajuc 7y ago

Normal operation of coal powerplants is more dangerous than the worst accidents we had with nuclear powerplants. Modern nuclear powerplants are much safer than these that had accidents. Yes you have to include the possibility of new accidents - being sabotaged or not. But that possibility needs to be weighed with the probability of it. And it's very low. Meanwhile we completely ignore the 100% sure deaths and radiation caused by coal powerplants. Because we're used to it. BTW sabotaging hydro powerplants can kill hundreds of thousands of people at once. And it's much easier than sabotaging a nuclear powerplant. Get one diver with a swimsuit and give him some TNT. Somehow I haven't seen this used as a counterargument to renewable energy :)

strainer 7y ago
For all the stretched comparisons about how safe nuclear can be, the technology is a liability which requires great care and expense to keep secure and safe. Its promotion was competing with and obstructing the promotion of renewables for over a decade past, but its moot now that in the past couple of years the price performance of renewables has become unassailable. There's no point promoting nuclear anymore and arguing about how safe nuclear has been or could be - its more expensive already than wind and solar, materially, environmentally, security-wise and economically. Wind and solar are still on a rapid improvement curve. Nuclear powered heat plants are not futuristic generation options, they're relics from the nuclear arms race.
Tade0 7y ago
Yes you have to include the possibility of new accidents - being sabotaged or not. But that possibility needs to be weighed with the probability of it. And it's very low. This is not a case of of risk but uncertainty - very different strategies apply here.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

> For example we have yet to see what can happen if a nuclear plant is sabotaged - that's not FUD That's FUD. What are you proposing is going to happen that would be worse? You can't get a nuclear explosion; the fuel isn't weapons grade. You can get a meltdown and a hydrogen explosion, but that is what happened at Chernobyl. It leaves behind a hot mess and a large cleanup bill but hardly anybody dies. Especially if you're not an obtuse Soviet bureaucracy that dispatches ordinary firefighters to deal with it without adequate training or equipment. > They consume alot of water resource as well, for cooling. Water isn't "consumed", it starts off as H2O and ends up that way. It evaporates and then condenses again somewhere downwind.

gpm 7y ago
The soviet response to Chernobyl was in many respects phenomenal. They mobilized hundreds of thousands of people to risk their lives to mitigate it. One effort that stands out as "preventing something much worse" is that there was a risk of a potentially larger secondary explosion from steam buildup. They tunneled under the reactor and injected ~25 tons of liquid nitrogen a day (the tunnel started 6 days after the explosion, and was functional 8 days after the explosion). They had people risk/give their lives swimming in to close valves and pumping water out. Dates from here: http://www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/timeline/ http://www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/timeline/ Also, you can absolutely get a nuclear explosion from a reactor, there is some suggestion that Chernobyl might have been a small one in fact (paper): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00295450.2017.1384269 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00295450.2017.1...
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > One effort that stands out as "preventing something much worse" is that there was a risk of a potentially larger secondary explosion from steam buildup. A larger conventional explosion would have been linearly worse, not worse rising to a separate category of problem. > Also, you can absolutely get a nuclear explosion from a reactor, there is some suggestion that Chernobyl might have been a small one in fact (paper) This is not what I'm referring to. It's one thing to have a "nuclear explosion" in the sense that the reaction generates enough heat to cause the rapid expansion of gasses which is technically an "explosion". What I'm referring to is the sort of exponential chain reaction that happens in a nuclear weapon, resulting in something on that scale. You have to design for that on purpose to get it. The density and geometry has to be exactly right.

Johnny555 7y ago

Thankfully its an academic debate now anyway, because solar and wind prices are already much cheaper with no end to their continued improvement in sight. Has large scale energy storage been solved? I know there are a number of ways to do grid-scale storage, but are any of them scalable enough to power the entire country from solar and wind? Especially if another "storm of the century" (which seem to be happening more frequently now) reduces solar/wind output from a significant portion of the country so you need to draw deep into storage reserves.

strainer 7y ago
> Has large scale energy storage been solved? There are numerous technologies which can currently provide large scale energy storage at cost which is currently competitive in many situations and due to drop rapidly once they are actually required and built in quantity. To mention a few: flow batteries, hydrogen production and generation, carbon neutral biomass fuel, heat storage and conversion batteries including molten salt, enhancement of existing hydro schemes, online EV fleet, active geothermal... besides you know if pushed, even the occasional emergency fossil fuel burn if unprepared. Nuclear plants are not known for their uptime during storms either. Current prices are detailed here, been dropping every year : https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-and-levelized-cost-of-storage-2018/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...