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It should be: "Why <insert power generation> Will Never Be Inherently Safe" All power generating has some risk. The idea is to create a differential and captu

It should be: "Why <insert power generation> Will Never Be Inherently Safe" All power generating has some risk. The idea is to create a differential and capture the differential. Inherently, generating power means capturing energy differentials and typically the higher the TWh the more damage when a failure to contain said energy creation occurs (think a nuclear plant, dam, wind turbine, etc.) Safety in nuclear power, as with other forms of energy generation, have more to do with politics. Politics will lead to cutting or increasing costs and safety guards being put (or not put) in place. Arguably, pollution due to coal and natural gas is going to cause global warming and in turn many billions will possibly die from starvation. Is that "inherently safe?" I don't think anyone disagrees that it will never be "inherently" safe, but it may be "safer" or "cause less damage" long term to the general populous than alternatives today.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
I will eat a hat in front of everyone on HN at a pub if a utility scale solar plant backed by utility scale lithium battery storage ever melts down, requiring billions of dollars of remediation and making the surrounding land uninhabitable for centuries. As you said, safety is politics, and politics are people. People will be greedy, they will cut corners, and without a rigid command structure and severe penalties for safety violations (ie the US Navy and their nuclear fleet), accidents will eventually occur. Solar is cheap to manufacture, easy to ship, and does not require skilled labor to rack and install (besides trained electricians for the interconnections). As of a few minutes ago, California is generating 10GW of solar energy, 1.8GW of wind, and only 2.1GW of nuclear [1] [2]. [1] https://i.imgur.com/FHm1Ppw.png https://i.imgur.com/FHm1Ppw.png [2] https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=country&remote=true&countryCode=US-CA https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=...
- Aloha 7y ago
  Lithium batteries are at best a bridge technology - meaning something good enough to get us until the next thing comes. The issues with Lithium batteries is, a finite lifetime, a shortage of the materials needed to make them, toxic byproducts of manufacture and recycling or disposing of the the batteries when their finite life is used up.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Lithium batteries can be safely recycled (the DOE is funding a lithium recycling research program at ANL in Illinois [1] to further improve materials reclamation processes), and their cost will continue to come down rapidly as manufacturing for them scales up (hundreds of GWs of battery manufacturing are coming online over the next three years) for the millions of EVs that will be sold each year as internal combustion vehicles are outlawed [2]. Lithium is an abundant resource, is not constrained by geopolitics, and the use of cobalt (a conflict mineral) is being phased out as research permits. If they're a bridge, they're still a better bridge than nuclear. Tesla had the Hornsdale Power Reserve installed (in Australia, from Nevada) in 90 days (100MW/129MWh installation). It takes 10 years to build nuclear generators. Maybe you reduce that time with streamlined reactor designs and regulatory processes, but you're never going to approach the speed of renewables and battery installs. [1] https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/doe-argonne-lithium-ion-battery-recycling-research/ https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/doe-argonne-lithium-i... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehicles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic...
    - coolaliasbro 7y ago
      Thanks, great info and references!
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        I appreciate the kind words. I am incredibly passionate about this topic!
    - keanzu 7y ago
      Australian residential customers are paying the highest electricity prices in the world [1] Any solution works if you have unlimited amounts of other people's money to throw at the problem [1] https://www.afr.com/news/australian-households-pay-highest-power-prices-in-world-20170804-gxp58a https://www.afr.com/news/australian-households-pay-highest-p...
      - 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- citilife 7y ago
  The problem are many places solar is less effective, for instance the northern mostly cloud covered states. Also, places such as Illinois have used primarily nuclear for power for decades without any incidents: https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=IL#tabs-4 https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=IL#tabs-4
Aloha 7y ago
Nuclear: Potential Wastelands, storage of waste Solar: Bird Deaths, toxic to make PV panels Wind: Potential Bird Deaths, fails violently when it does Hydro: Dam Failure, incompatible with a healthy fishery Fossil: Pollution of various forms, finite amount of fuel I'd still prefer nuclear power, given the options.
- intertextuality 7y ago
  Your list is totally disingenuous. Are you actually comparing the environmental issues associated with creating a solar panel, to a nuclear facility melting down and making the entire surrounding area uninhabitable and unusable for centuries? Not to mention causing a huge uptick in cancer in the the surrounding areas as well? I think nuclear is our only real option moving forward (due to wildly increasing energy consumption) but we need to look at these things honestly. Any damage caused by solar or hydro is wildly incomparable to more nuclear meltdowns or current fossil fuel emissions.
  - Aloha 7y ago
    We have enough land in most part of the world that if we lost, say, 10,000 - 100,000 acres a decade due to meltdown, we'd still be pretty okay (and I dont think we'd loose that much, given Generation II reactors that are in service, have a failure record which is something like 1 every 100 hour-years of actual operation) - that said the risk of nuclear meltdown is actually really really really low - even risks of moderate leaks are really low. The larger issue is long term storage of the wastes of the plants, which adds a huge cost to the energy generated. I'd also consider hat with generation II reactors most of the failures were systems failures, not failures of the reactor itself - we know how to engineer around systems failures.
    - keanzu 7y ago
      If we are only allocating 10,000 acres a decade for land lost to power generation then solar is a non-starter. Solar Star is a 579-megawatt (MWAC) photovoltaic power station spread over 3,200 acres. For comparison Fukushima Daini was delivering 4400MW.

toomuchtodo 7y ago

I will eat a hat in front of everyone on HN at a pub if a utility scale solar plant backed by utility scale lithium battery storage ever melts down, requiring billions of dollars of remediation and making the surrounding land uninhabitable for centuries. As you said, safety is politics, and politics are people. People will be greedy, they will cut corners, and without a rigid command structure and severe penalties for safety violations (ie the US Navy and their nuclear fleet), accidents will eventually occur. Solar is cheap to manufacture, easy to ship, and does not require skilled labor to rack and install (besides trained electricians for the interconnections). As of a few minutes ago, California is generating 10GW of solar energy, 1.8GW of wind, and only 2.1GW of nuclear [1] [2]. [1] https://i.imgur.com/FHm1Ppw.png https://i.imgur.com/FHm1Ppw.png [2] https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=country&remote=true&countryCode=US-CA https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=...

Aloha 7y ago
Lithium batteries are at best a bridge technology - meaning something good enough to get us until the next thing comes. The issues with Lithium batteries is, a finite lifetime, a shortage of the materials needed to make them, toxic byproducts of manufacture and recycling or disposing of the the batteries when their finite life is used up.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Lithium batteries can be safely recycled (the DOE is funding a lithium recycling research program at ANL in Illinois [1] to further improve materials reclamation processes), and their cost will continue to come down rapidly as manufacturing for them scales up (hundreds of GWs of battery manufacturing are coming online over the next three years) for the millions of EVs that will be sold each year as internal combustion vehicles are outlawed [2]. Lithium is an abundant resource, is not constrained by geopolitics, and the use of cobalt (a conflict mineral) is being phased out as research permits. If they're a bridge, they're still a better bridge than nuclear. Tesla had the Hornsdale Power Reserve installed (in Australia, from Nevada) in 90 days (100MW/129MWh installation). It takes 10 years to build nuclear generators. Maybe you reduce that time with streamlined reactor designs and regulatory processes, but you're never going to approach the speed of renewables and battery installs. [1] https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/doe-argonne-lithium-ion-battery-recycling-research/ https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/doe-argonne-lithium-i... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehicles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic...
  - coolaliasbro 7y ago
    Thanks, great info and references!
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      I appreciate the kind words. I am incredibly passionate about this topic!
  - keanzu 7y ago
    Australian residential customers are paying the highest electricity prices in the world [1] Any solution works if you have unlimited amounts of other people's money to throw at the problem [1] https://www.afr.com/news/australian-households-pay-highest-power-prices-in-world-20170804-gxp58a https://www.afr.com/news/australian-households-pay-highest-p...
    - 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
citilife 7y ago
The problem are many places solar is less effective, for instance the northern mostly cloud covered states. Also, places such as Illinois have used primarily nuclear for power for decades without any incidents: https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=IL#tabs-4 https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=IL#tabs-4

Aloha 7y ago

Nuclear: Potential Wastelands, storage of waste Solar: Bird Deaths, toxic to make PV panels Wind: Potential Bird Deaths, fails violently when it does Hydro: Dam Failure, incompatible with a healthy fishery Fossil: Pollution of various forms, finite amount of fuel I'd still prefer nuclear power, given the options.

intertextuality 7y ago
Your list is totally disingenuous. Are you actually comparing the environmental issues associated with creating a solar panel, to a nuclear facility melting down and making the entire surrounding area uninhabitable and unusable for centuries? Not to mention causing a huge uptick in cancer in the the surrounding areas as well? I think nuclear is our only real option moving forward (due to wildly increasing energy consumption) but we need to look at these things honestly. Any damage caused by solar or hydro is wildly incomparable to more nuclear meltdowns or current fossil fuel emissions.
- Aloha 7y ago
  We have enough land in most part of the world that if we lost, say, 10,000 - 100,000 acres a decade due to meltdown, we'd still be pretty okay (and I dont think we'd loose that much, given Generation II reactors that are in service, have a failure record which is something like 1 every 100 hour-years of actual operation) - that said the risk of nuclear meltdown is actually really really really low - even risks of moderate leaks are really low. The larger issue is long term storage of the wastes of the plants, which adds a huge cost to the energy generated. I'd also consider hat with generation II reactors most of the failures were systems failures, not failures of the reactor itself - we know how to engineer around systems failures.
  - keanzu 7y ago
    If we are only allocating 10,000 acres a decade for land lost to power generation then solar is a non-starter. Solar Star is a 579-megawatt (MWAC) photovoltaic power station spread over 3,200 acres. For comparison Fukushima Daini was delivering 4400MW.