21 ms·

Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

124 points by KabuseCha 7y ago

mrpopo 7y ago
Another reason for the "country’s shrinking appetite for nuclear" that I can cite is the North Korean terrorist threat. Rationally, there is little reason for the North Korean state to cause long term damage to a soil that they claim belongs to them, and also the number of such attacks is now close to zero, but as we all know this kind of fear will not go away. Renewables could work as a replacement, but this may only further weaken South Korea's position in the energy sector in the 21st century. They have a large petroleum and natural gas refining sector, which as we know needs to be phased out. What will be their trajectory in this context?
- bboygravity 7y ago
  "Renewables could work as a replacement" No. They can't as long as cheap energy storage on mass scales doesn't exist. Case in point: closing nuclear plants and replacing them with renewables is what Germany has been trying to do and has failed to do so far. They essentially replaced (and will continue to replace) nuclear by renewables paired with coal and gas plants running on standby. They can't cold start these plants fast enough to catch dips in energy production from renewables. You simply can't replace a constant energy source (nuclear) by an intermittent one (most renewables). I'm guessing South Korea will go the same route as "good example" Germany. Push renewables. Which translates to; close nuclear plants, invest heavily in solar and wind paired with gas and coal. End result: more CO2 emissions, higher consumer energy prices, but most importantly: a clean reputation through good intentions. Renewables at this stage are more about politically correct marketing than about clean and safe energy.
  - mschuster91 7y ago
    > No. They can't as long as cheap energy storage on mass scales doesn't exist. It does, Tesla's grid-scale Powerwall made 25% of its cost in profits in 6 months (per https://insideevs.com/news/340702/tesla-powerpack-in-australia-generated-17-million-in-revenue-in-6-months/ https://insideevs.com/news/340702/tesla-powerpack-in-austral...). Aside from using Powerwalls, us Europeans have extensive experience with using hydro pump storage.
    - jjoonathan 7y ago
      So why did Germany go with gas and coal?
      - Tomte 7y ago
        Germany has always had a lot of coal. It's not like Germany just started building a lot of coal plants, to replace the closed nuclear plants.
      - mschuster91 7y ago
        Our coal infrastructure is on the way to be phased out, it won't be around for long-term any more - the Kohlekommission proposed 2035-2038 for the final shutdown, with 12.5 GW of 42.6 GW capacity going offline until 2022 (per https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-01/kohlekommission-kohleausstieg-bundesregierung-plan-kraftwerke-braunkohle https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-01/kohlekommission-kohle...). What's left will be gas and renewables.
        bboygravity 7y ago
        It is planned to be phased out. Just like nuclear. That means that within 15 years Germany will have to replace roughly 70 % of its constant energy sources (nuclear and coals) by the only scalable constant energy source left: gas. Thereby becoming completely reliant on gas from Russia. Creating a massive geopolicital risk that didn't exist previously. http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Germany-Electricity-Generation.png http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/201... I'll believe it when I see it. Also. What problem exactly is that supposed to solve? I thought the whole energiewende stunt was about decreasing CO2 emissions. I'm not seeing this.
        imtringued 7y ago
        >by the only scalable constant energy source left: gas. What makes you think coal and nuclear are scalable? Gas has been the only option from the start and simply switching from coal to gas already results in a 50-60% CO2 reduction.
  - freeflight 7y ago
    > Case in point: closing nuclear plants and replacing them with renewables is what Germany has been trying to do and has failed to do so far. Germany was the global top electricity exporter, by dollar value, in 2017 [0]. If that's what "failing" looks like, then maybe more countries should start "failing" like that? In that context, coal and gas are only stop-gap technologies until storage technology and deployment has caught up, and coal is mostly only around for the same reasons as in the US: To not piss off the miners/lose those jobs. [0] http://www.worldstopexports.com/electricity-exports-country/ http://www.worldstopexports.com/electricity-exports-country/
    - Faark 7y ago
      The talking point i usually hear against this is "germany exports the huge fluctuation in production caused by green energy to the eu grid, straining the entire system". I haven't come across a good argument against this. Import/Export does indeed seem to vary widely based on time of day [0]. But this doesn't mean there are negative effects. Net frequency might be a better indicator, but I haven't found good graphs, yet. > coal is mostly only around for the same reasons as in the US: To not piss off the miners/lose those jobs. Totally agree, especially lignite heavy regions don't have a lot of other industry. [0] select "import, export" at https://energy-charts.de/power.htm?source=all-sources&year=2019&week=18 https://energy-charts.de/power.htm?source=all-sources&year=2...
781 7y ago
Friendly PSA: do not dare to question nuclear energy safety on HN. I've seen no other subject which triggers such vitriolic responses as this, you'll be called a flat-earther anti-vaxxer luddite, you'll be told "coal kills more..." and so on. > After the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, most reactor builders had tacked on a slew of new safety features. KHNP followed suit but later realized that the astronomical cost of these features would make the APR1400 much too expensive to attract foreign clients. > “They eventually removed most of them,” says Park, who now teaches nuclear engineering at Dongguk University. “Only about 10% to 20% of the original safety additions were kept.”
- cal5k 7y ago
  Do you have actual data to counter that narrative? Or just a single unsourced anecdote?
  - stevenwoo 7y ago
    Why does the nuclear industry require the Price-Anderson act to subsidize insurance for it? Or what happened to the whistleblower Karen Silkwood?
    - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
      Because a coal power plant is much harder to pin $12.6 billion in direct damage to? Sure they produce pollution that affects millions and contribute to CO2 emissions that affect billions, but it's much harder to point to them as a single source.
- nihonde 7y ago
  Having been on the receiving end of this little downvote coalition for daring to state facts about the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini sites, I can confirm that this is an oddly hot-button issue on HN.
- gingabriska 7y ago
  I wonder if they stop making them because it makes a country vunerable? After all enemies of the nation have to just blow up a few reactors to cause major damage, right? But if a solar or wind or even coal plant is bombed, not much happens?
tim333 7y ago
Yeah there was greed and corruption but as the article says other countries have stopped too: >A similar reversal is beginning in China, until recently seen as nuclear energy’s biggest champion. There, as in South Korea, Fukushima awakened public fears and forced the government to adopt tougher safety standards, which now threaten to push the cost of nuclear power out of reach. Of the world’s other major producers of nuclear power, only Russia is still aggressively building more reactors... I hope renewables and batteries play out.
- gingabriska 7y ago
  Is India still working on Thorium Reactor? I wonder if we'll have any major development coming from there in near time.
  - tim333 7y ago
    It seems to be planned but a fair way in the future. https://www.powermag.com/indian-designed-nuclear-reactor-breaks-record-for-continuous-operation/ https://www.powermag.com/indian-designed-nuclear-reactor-bre...
- bboygravity 7y ago
  I call BS on "a similar reversal is beginning in China" : "China is no stranger to nuclear power. The stated PRC goal is to raise domestic nuclear energy output from 43 gigawatts (GW) to 300 GW by 2030." https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2019/04/25/china-enters-global-tech-race-for-small-modular-nuclear-reactors/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2019/04/25/china-ent...
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612564/chinas-losing-its-taste-for-nuclear-power-thats-bad-news/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612564/chinas-losing-its-... (China’s losing its taste for nuclear power. That’s bad news.) > Officially China still sees nuclear power as a must-have. But unofficially, the technology is on a death watch. Experts, including some with links to the government, see China’s nuclear sector succumbing to the same problems affecting the West: the technology is too expensive, and the public doesn’t want it. > The 2011 meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant shocked Chinese officials and made a strong impression on many Chinese citizens. A government survey in August 2017 found that only 40% of the public supported nuclear power development. > The bigger problem is financial. Reactors built with extra safety features and more robust cooling systems to avoid a Fukushima-like disaster are expensive, while the costs of wind and solar power continue to plummet: they are now 20% cheaper than electricity from new nuclear plants in China, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Moreover, high construction costs make nuclear a risky investment. China's electricity consumption growth is also rapidly slowing due to faltering economic growth.
kpmcc 7y ago
I thought greed and corruption were good for industry...
clarkmoody 7y ago
Nuclear power presents the perfect storm for negative public image: - Environmental movement went anti-nuclear in the '70s for no particular reason. - Fear Sells in the media. Nothing strikes fear like the invisible killer of radiation. Nuclear disasters get media attention like nothing else. - Nuclear weapons are scary, and rightfully so. And they share a word in common with "nuclear power," so there you go. Being tightly regulated and controlled by government makes an industry ripe for "corruption and greed" since it takes political connection and maneuvering to get things done. It really is amazing, though, how much public image and politics can completely stall forward progress on a power source with so much promise.
- davidgay 7y ago
  > Nuclear weapons are scary, and rightfully so. And they share a word in common with "nuclear power," so there you go. Now you're being specious. They share rather more than a word, they are based on the same physical process.
  - arethuza 7y ago
    Yes, but the design of a nuclear power reactor and a nuclear weapon are pretty different - for a start the really nasty bit of most nuclear weapons is the fission of the secondary tamper by neutrons from the fusion component of the secondary. Nothing like that happens in a nuclear power station.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      Nuclear weapons require the reactors, and a number were built for plutonium production e.g. Windscale/Sellafield. There are plenty of countries that probably shouldn't be allowed unsupervised reactors for this reason.
- capitol_ 7y ago
  "no particular reason" is quite a misrepresentation. If you mean that you don't agree with their reasons or think they are incorrect it would be more honest to state that.
rurban 7y ago
What they didn't explain was that this crazy APR1400 is the same design is the one of most dangerous and experimental US reactors, South Texas and Palo Verde, with vessels of double size and half the security measures. The only ones matching them in size and dangerousness were the experimental Korean 1400 ones.
- cladari 7y ago
  South Texas is a 4 loop Westinghouse design and Palo Verde is a 2 loop System 80 Combustion Engineering design. Neither is experimental or unusually dangerous.
  - rurban 7y ago
    South Texas is a French P4 Framatime design with 1400 MW vessels, not used anywhere else in the US (rated experimental) just Korea, with the highest incident rate in the US and the biggest vessels. Palo Verde is also overlarge and so dangerous with any external cooling possibilities (it's in the dessert), that US fighters regularly have to protect it from unknown planes flying nearby. Anti-Terror measures. Both were labeled experimental and are extremely dangerous. South Texas just recently was very close to a meltdown during the Houston hurricane. The river nearby rose to the levels almost spilling over into their huge coolant pools. It was something like 40cm. They didn't utter a single word.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
"Blew up" in the context of the nuclear industry could be not the best choice of words...
sara17372 7y ago
Sometimes our feet smell are so bad even we feel ashamed due to our feet smell Now you can get rid from this just follow this simple method https://zoomtips.blogspot.com/2019/04/Smelly-feet.html https://zoomtips.blogspot.com/2019/04/Smelly-feet.html Guy made world record He drive car on two wheels See his video how he is driving http://bit.ly/2ZOYaWX http://bit.ly/2ZOYaWX See the video of this man he is catching balls and he is wearing blindfold http://bit.ly/2Vx4Mdl http://bit.ly/2Vx4Mdl
sunkenvicar 7y ago
Scott Adams just interviewed Michael Shellenberger on his podcast. Michael explains nuclear power and how it compares to the competition. https://blog.dilbert.com/2019/04/30/episode-512-scott-adams-part-1-pro-nuclear-environmentalist-and-expert-michael-shellenberger/ https://blog.dilbert.com/2019/04/30/episode-512-scott-adams-...
pcr910303 7y ago
Okay, I’m a South Korean citizen. That, is one aspect. Consider another aspect. Nuclear reactors are dangerous. That doesn’t change. We get the Fukushima accident much more prominently because Japan is so close th Korea and everyone (literally everyone) had to worry about eating Fukushima fish. Nuclear reactors are dangerously close to so many cities, and that can’t change, because our country is too small, and there are so many mountains (which take up space). It’s different from saying ‘Hey, it’s failure rate is super small, it’s gonna be safe.’ and living close to the reactors and worrying about the tiny failure rate. And, I was Science High School student which studied nuclear reactors in detail. What would usual people feel?
- joecool1029 7y ago
  > Nuclear reactors are dangerous. Doesn't Korea have coal? Shows up as over a quarter of your generation. Have you been to a region that uses coal for energy generation and seen what it does to the land? Mining it causes heavy metal pollution of water that kills people, the fish pick up mercury and lead, and people consume the fish. Shouldn't you be more concerned about coal plants in China contaminating your waters? EDIT: Korea study on mercury sources: https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S1309104215302713 https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S1309104215302713
  - pcr910303 7y ago
    > Shouldn’t you be more concerned about coal plants in China contaminating your waters? Oh course we are concerned, and for what I know our government is keep contacting the Chinese government; however it is hard for Korea to make changes in China’s energy plans. Korea is both migrating from neuclear reactors, coal plants, etc... to LNG plants (which are much more clean and do not produce much dust) and renewable energy.
vbuwivbiu 7y ago
it's one industry where you must assume the worst of the companies that run it because the consequences of mistakes are so terrible
oppressedgf 7y ago
Of all the words you could use to describe the nuclear industry, blew up should not be in the list

124 points by KabuseCha 7y ago

Another reason for the "country’s shrinking appetite for nuclear" that I can cite is the North Korean terrorist threat. Rationally, there is little reason for the North Korean state to cause long term damage to a soil that they claim belongs to them, and also the number of such attacks is now close to zero, but as we all know this kind of fear will not go away. Renewables could work as a replacement, but this may only further weaken South Korea's position in the energy sector in the 21st century. They have a large petroleum and natural gas refining sector, which as we know needs to be phased out. What will be their trajectory in this context?

bboygravity 7y ago
"Renewables could work as a replacement" No. They can't as long as cheap energy storage on mass scales doesn't exist. Case in point: closing nuclear plants and replacing them with renewables is what Germany has been trying to do and has failed to do so far. They essentially replaced (and will continue to replace) nuclear by renewables paired with coal and gas plants running on standby. They can't cold start these plants fast enough to catch dips in energy production from renewables. You simply can't replace a constant energy source (nuclear) by an intermittent one (most renewables). I'm guessing South Korea will go the same route as "good example" Germany. Push renewables. Which translates to; close nuclear plants, invest heavily in solar and wind paired with gas and coal. End result: more CO2 emissions, higher consumer energy prices, but most importantly: a clean reputation through good intentions. Renewables at this stage are more about politically correct marketing than about clean and safe energy.
- mschuster91 7y ago
  > No. They can't as long as cheap energy storage on mass scales doesn't exist. It does, Tesla's grid-scale Powerwall made 25% of its cost in profits in 6 months (per https://insideevs.com/news/340702/tesla-powerpack-in-australia-generated-17-million-in-revenue-in-6-months/ https://insideevs.com/news/340702/tesla-powerpack-in-austral...). Aside from using Powerwalls, us Europeans have extensive experience with using hydro pump storage.
  - jjoonathan 7y ago
    So why did Germany go with gas and coal?
    - Tomte 7y ago
      Germany has always had a lot of coal. It's not like Germany just started building a lot of coal plants, to replace the closed nuclear plants.
    - mschuster91 7y ago
      Our coal infrastructure is on the way to be phased out, it won't be around for long-term any more - the Kohlekommission proposed 2035-2038 for the final shutdown, with 12.5 GW of 42.6 GW capacity going offline until 2022 (per https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-01/kohlekommission-kohleausstieg-bundesregierung-plan-kraftwerke-braunkohle https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-01/kohlekommission-kohle...). What's left will be gas and renewables.
      - bboygravity 7y ago
        It is planned to be phased out. Just like nuclear. That means that within 15 years Germany will have to replace roughly 70 % of its constant energy sources (nuclear and coals) by the only scalable constant energy source left: gas. Thereby becoming completely reliant on gas from Russia. Creating a massive geopolicital risk that didn't exist previously. http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Germany-Electricity-Generation.png http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/201... I'll believe it when I see it. Also. What problem exactly is that supposed to solve? I thought the whole energiewende stunt was about decreasing CO2 emissions. I'm not seeing this.
        imtringued 7y ago
        >by the only scalable constant energy source left: gas. What makes you think coal and nuclear are scalable? Gas has been the only option from the start and simply switching from coal to gas already results in a 50-60% CO2 reduction.
- freeflight 7y ago
  > Case in point: closing nuclear plants and replacing them with renewables is what Germany has been trying to do and has failed to do so far. Germany was the global top electricity exporter, by dollar value, in 2017 [0]. If that's what "failing" looks like, then maybe more countries should start "failing" like that? In that context, coal and gas are only stop-gap technologies until storage technology and deployment has caught up, and coal is mostly only around for the same reasons as in the US: To not piss off the miners/lose those jobs. [0] http://www.worldstopexports.com/electricity-exports-country/ http://www.worldstopexports.com/electricity-exports-country/
  - Faark 7y ago
    The talking point i usually hear against this is "germany exports the huge fluctuation in production caused by green energy to the eu grid, straining the entire system". I haven't come across a good argument against this. Import/Export does indeed seem to vary widely based on time of day [0]. But this doesn't mean there are negative effects. Net frequency might be a better indicator, but I haven't found good graphs, yet. > coal is mostly only around for the same reasons as in the US: To not piss off the miners/lose those jobs. Totally agree, especially lignite heavy regions don't have a lot of other industry. [0] select "import, export" at https://energy-charts.de/power.htm?source=all-sources&year=2019&week=18 https://energy-charts.de/power.htm?source=all-sources&year=2...

781 7y ago

Friendly PSA: do not dare to question nuclear energy safety on HN. I've seen no other subject which triggers such vitriolic responses as this, you'll be called a flat-earther anti-vaxxer luddite, you'll be told "coal kills more..." and so on. > After the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, most reactor builders had tacked on a slew of new safety features. KHNP followed suit but later realized that the astronomical cost of these features would make the APR1400 much too expensive to attract foreign clients. > “They eventually removed most of them,” says Park, who now teaches nuclear engineering at Dongguk University. “Only about 10% to 20% of the original safety additions were kept.”

cal5k 7y ago
Do you have actual data to counter that narrative? Or just a single unsourced anecdote?
- stevenwoo 7y ago
  Why does the nuclear industry require the Price-Anderson act to subsidize insurance for it? Or what happened to the whistleblower Karen Silkwood?
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    Because a coal power plant is much harder to pin $12.6 billion in direct damage to? Sure they produce pollution that affects millions and contribute to CO2 emissions that affect billions, but it's much harder to point to them as a single source.
nihonde 7y ago
Having been on the receiving end of this little downvote coalition for daring to state facts about the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini sites, I can confirm that this is an oddly hot-button issue on HN.
gingabriska 7y ago
I wonder if they stop making them because it makes a country vunerable? After all enemies of the nation have to just blow up a few reactors to cause major damage, right? But if a solar or wind or even coal plant is bombed, not much happens?

tim333 7y ago

Yeah there was greed and corruption but as the article says other countries have stopped too: >A similar reversal is beginning in China, until recently seen as nuclear energy’s biggest champion. There, as in South Korea, Fukushima awakened public fears and forced the government to adopt tougher safety standards, which now threaten to push the cost of nuclear power out of reach. Of the world’s other major producers of nuclear power, only Russia is still aggressively building more reactors... I hope renewables and batteries play out.

gingabriska 7y ago
Is India still working on Thorium Reactor? I wonder if we'll have any major development coming from there in near time.
- tim333 7y ago
  It seems to be planned but a fair way in the future. https://www.powermag.com/indian-designed-nuclear-reactor-breaks-record-for-continuous-operation/ https://www.powermag.com/indian-designed-nuclear-reactor-bre...
bboygravity 7y ago
I call BS on "a similar reversal is beginning in China" : "China is no stranger to nuclear power. The stated PRC goal is to raise domestic nuclear energy output from 43 gigawatts (GW) to 300 GW by 2030." https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2019/04/25/china-enters-global-tech-race-for-small-modular-nuclear-reactors/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2019/04/25/china-ent...
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612564/chinas-losing-its-taste-for-nuclear-power-thats-bad-news/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612564/chinas-losing-its-... (China’s losing its taste for nuclear power. That’s bad news.) > Officially China still sees nuclear power as a must-have. But unofficially, the technology is on a death watch. Experts, including some with links to the government, see China’s nuclear sector succumbing to the same problems affecting the West: the technology is too expensive, and the public doesn’t want it. > The 2011 meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant shocked Chinese officials and made a strong impression on many Chinese citizens. A government survey in August 2017 found that only 40% of the public supported nuclear power development. > The bigger problem is financial. Reactors built with extra safety features and more robust cooling systems to avoid a Fukushima-like disaster are expensive, while the costs of wind and solar power continue to plummet: they are now 20% cheaper than electricity from new nuclear plants in China, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Moreover, high construction costs make nuclear a risky investment. China's electricity consumption growth is also rapidly slowing due to faltering economic growth.

kpmcc 7y ago

I thought greed and corruption were good for industry...

clarkmoody 7y ago

Nuclear power presents the perfect storm for negative public image: - Environmental movement went anti-nuclear in the '70s for no particular reason. - Fear Sells in the media. Nothing strikes fear like the invisible killer of radiation. Nuclear disasters get media attention like nothing else. - Nuclear weapons are scary, and rightfully so. And they share a word in common with "nuclear power," so there you go. Being tightly regulated and controlled by government makes an industry ripe for "corruption and greed" since it takes political connection and maneuvering to get things done. It really is amazing, though, how much public image and politics can completely stall forward progress on a power source with so much promise.

davidgay 7y ago
> Nuclear weapons are scary, and rightfully so. And they share a word in common with "nuclear power," so there you go. Now you're being specious. They share rather more than a word, they are based on the same physical process.
- arethuza 7y ago
  Yes, but the design of a nuclear power reactor and a nuclear weapon are pretty different - for a start the really nasty bit of most nuclear weapons is the fission of the secondary tamper by neutrons from the fusion component of the secondary. Nothing like that happens in a nuclear power station.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    Nuclear weapons require the reactors, and a number were built for plutonium production e.g. Windscale/Sellafield. There are plenty of countries that probably shouldn't be allowed unsupervised reactors for this reason.
capitol_ 7y ago
"no particular reason" is quite a misrepresentation. If you mean that you don't agree with their reasons or think they are incorrect it would be more honest to state that.

rurban 7y ago

What they didn't explain was that this crazy APR1400 is the same design is the one of most dangerous and experimental US reactors, South Texas and Palo Verde, with vessels of double size and half the security measures. The only ones matching them in size and dangerousness were the experimental Korean 1400 ones.

cladari 7y ago
South Texas is a 4 loop Westinghouse design and Palo Verde is a 2 loop System 80 Combustion Engineering design. Neither is experimental or unusually dangerous.
- rurban 7y ago
  South Texas is a French P4 Framatime design with 1400 MW vessels, not used anywhere else in the US (rated experimental) just Korea, with the highest incident rate in the US and the biggest vessels. Palo Verde is also overlarge and so dangerous with any external cooling possibilities (it's in the dessert), that US fighters regularly have to protect it from unknown planes flying nearby. Anti-Terror measures. Both were labeled experimental and are extremely dangerous. South Texas just recently was very close to a meltdown during the Houston hurricane. The river nearby rose to the levels almost spilling over into their huge coolant pools. It was something like 40cm. They didn't utter a single word.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

"Blew up" in the context of the nuclear industry could be not the best choice of words...

sara17372 7y ago

Sometimes our feet smell are so bad even we feel ashamed due to our feet smell Now you can get rid from this just follow this simple method https://zoomtips.blogspot.com/2019/04/Smelly-feet.html https://zoomtips.blogspot.com/2019/04/Smelly-feet.html Guy made world record He drive car on two wheels See his video how he is driving http://bit.ly/2ZOYaWX http://bit.ly/2ZOYaWX See the video of this man he is catching balls and he is wearing blindfold http://bit.ly/2Vx4Mdl http://bit.ly/2Vx4Mdl

sunkenvicar 7y ago

Scott Adams just interviewed Michael Shellenberger on his podcast. Michael explains nuclear power and how it compares to the competition. https://blog.dilbert.com/2019/04/30/episode-512-scott-adams-part-1-pro-nuclear-environmentalist-and-expert-michael-shellenberger/ https://blog.dilbert.com/2019/04/30/episode-512-scott-adams-...

pcr910303 7y ago

Okay, I’m a South Korean citizen. That, is one aspect. Consider another aspect. Nuclear reactors are dangerous. That doesn’t change. We get the Fukushima accident much more prominently because Japan is so close th Korea and everyone (literally everyone) had to worry about eating Fukushima fish. Nuclear reactors are dangerously close to so many cities, and that can’t change, because our country is too small, and there are so many mountains (which take up space). It’s different from saying ‘Hey, it’s failure rate is super small, it’s gonna be safe.’ and living close to the reactors and worrying about the tiny failure rate. And, I was Science High School student which studied nuclear reactors in detail. What would usual people feel?

joecool1029 7y ago
> Nuclear reactors are dangerous. Doesn't Korea have coal? Shows up as over a quarter of your generation. Have you been to a region that uses coal for energy generation and seen what it does to the land? Mining it causes heavy metal pollution of water that kills people, the fish pick up mercury and lead, and people consume the fish. Shouldn't you be more concerned about coal plants in China contaminating your waters? EDIT: Korea study on mercury sources: https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S1309104215302713 https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S1309104215302713
- pcr910303 7y ago
  > Shouldn’t you be more concerned about coal plants in China contaminating your waters? Oh course we are concerned, and for what I know our government is keep contacting the Chinese government; however it is hard for Korea to make changes in China’s energy plans. Korea is both migrating from neuclear reactors, coal plants, etc... to LNG plants (which are much more clean and do not produce much dust) and renewable energy.

vbuwivbiu 7y ago

it's one industry where you must assume the worst of the companies that run it because the consequences of mistakes are so terrible

oppressedgf 7y ago

Of all the words you could use to describe the nuclear industry, blew up should not be in the list