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There are actually a bunch of US navy incidents related to nuclear power listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents https://en.w

by onli 7y ago

There are actually a bunch of US navy incidents related to nuclear power listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accid.... It's a sound assumptions that there are many more we would not hear about.

pdonis 7y ago
> a bunch of US navy incidents related to nuclear power The only US Navy incidents I see there are: - Loss of the USS Thresher--the reactor was shut down because of a subsafe problem (water leaking into the submarine because of a failed weld), not anything to do with the reactor. The leakage was severe enough that, as noted, the sub could not surface and sunk past crush depth. - Loss of the USS Scorpion--the cause is unknown, as noted on the Wikipedia page, but a reactor problem is not among the causes considered possible. Most of the possible causes involve some kind of event causing a hull breach and flooding. [1] - Various incidents involving radioactive reactor cooling water or related substances (such as the resin used to clean the reactor cooling loop). These do qualify as "incidents", but they have nothing to do with incorrect operation of the reactor or any inherent danger or factors not being understood in the reactor design. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_%28SSN-589%29#Theories_about_the_loss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_%28SSN-589%29#The...
- onli 7y ago
  > but they have nothing to do with incorrect operation of the reactor or any inherent danger or factors not being understood in the reactor design. To the contrary, society's inability to deal with the radioactive waste created by running these reactors is one of the main concerns against nuclear power.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > society's inability to deal with the radioactive waste This is a political problem, not a technical problem. The only country using nuclear power that even has the political problem is the US. As noted elsewhere in this thread, every other country that uses nuclear power reprocesses the spent fuel and does not have a nuclear waste problem.
    - onli 7y ago
      That's completely wrong, how did you get that idea? All countries with nuclear waste I'm aware of have the same nuclear waste problem. Germany is one example and probably the worst offender, it does not even have one nuclear waste storage facility (and early tries looked like this: https://static.geo.de/bilder/51/5b/41390/article_image_big/07f40e888e72deab5b916fe082766e3f.jpg https://static.geo.de/bilder/51/5b/41390/article_image_big/0...) and just exports it to other countries (mainly France) that store it in other temporary places. Last time I looked into it not one country had the ability to reprocess the fuel (and how would that work anyway?) and there was only one country in Europe that claimed it will have a storage facility fit for storing the waste forever, highly disputed (there are multiple for weakly radioactive waste but none for the highly radioactive stuff). > This is a political problem, not a technical problem Even if that were true (it isn't) that wouldn't not make it any better. Nuclear energy would still be way too dangerous, it doesn't matter whether the cause for its danger technical or political. --- No one besides us two will read this, so I will add something I normally would not: You claim a lot of falsehoods in this thread, like this now and the navy incidents. May I politely invite you to inform yourself a little bit better about this nuclear energy question? I really think that the political power amassed on HN could influence future politics on this question, and HN loves technical solution but sometimes misses the sensitivity for the danger on nuclear energy (probably reflecting that in the US there is no proper green energy movement and knowledge about this is in general limited). You adding completely wrong information to the discussion does not help improving the situation. So, as a real honest request: Please read up a bit more on this and don't spread pro-nuclear propaganda here.
      - pdonis 7y ago
        > Last time I looked into it not one country had the ability to reprocess the fuel (and how would that work anyway?) Nobody has reprocessing capacity? You don't know how reprocessing would work? Are you serious? http://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/fuel-recycling/processing-of-used-nuclear-fuel.aspx http://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cy... Note the "reprocessing capacity" table. > May I politely invite you to inform yourself a little bit better about this nuclear energy question? I think you are the one who needs to better inform yourself. I definitely think you need to do that before accusing anyone else of claiming falsehoods.

by onli 7y ago

pdonis 7y ago

> a bunch of US navy incidents related to nuclear power The only US Navy incidents I see there are: - Loss of the USS Thresher--the reactor was shut down because of a subsafe problem (water leaking into the submarine because of a failed weld), not anything to do with the reactor. The leakage was severe enough that, as noted, the sub could not surface and sunk past crush depth. - Loss of the USS Scorpion--the cause is unknown, as noted on the Wikipedia page, but a reactor problem is not among the causes considered possible. Most of the possible causes involve some kind of event causing a hull breach and flooding. [1] - Various incidents involving radioactive reactor cooling water or related substances (such as the resin used to clean the reactor cooling loop). These do qualify as "incidents", but they have nothing to do with incorrect operation of the reactor or any inherent danger or factors not being understood in the reactor design. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_%28SSN-589%29#Theories_about_the_loss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_%28SSN-589%29#The...

onli 7y ago
> but they have nothing to do with incorrect operation of the reactor or any inherent danger or factors not being understood in the reactor design. To the contrary, society's inability to deal with the radioactive waste created by running these reactors is one of the main concerns against nuclear power.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > society's inability to deal with the radioactive waste This is a political problem, not a technical problem. The only country using nuclear power that even has the political problem is the US. As noted elsewhere in this thread, every other country that uses nuclear power reprocesses the spent fuel and does not have a nuclear waste problem.
  - onli 7y ago
    That's completely wrong, how did you get that idea? All countries with nuclear waste I'm aware of have the same nuclear waste problem. Germany is one example and probably the worst offender, it does not even have one nuclear waste storage facility (and early tries looked like this: https://static.geo.de/bilder/51/5b/41390/article_image_big/07f40e888e72deab5b916fe082766e3f.jpg https://static.geo.de/bilder/51/5b/41390/article_image_big/0...) and just exports it to other countries (mainly France) that store it in other temporary places. Last time I looked into it not one country had the ability to reprocess the fuel (and how would that work anyway?) and there was only one country in Europe that claimed it will have a storage facility fit for storing the waste forever, highly disputed (there are multiple for weakly radioactive waste but none for the highly radioactive stuff). > This is a political problem, not a technical problem Even if that were true (it isn't) that wouldn't not make it any better. Nuclear energy would still be way too dangerous, it doesn't matter whether the cause for its danger technical or political. --- No one besides us two will read this, so I will add something I normally would not: You claim a lot of falsehoods in this thread, like this now and the navy incidents. May I politely invite you to inform yourself a little bit better about this nuclear energy question? I really think that the political power amassed on HN could influence future politics on this question, and HN loves technical solution but sometimes misses the sensitivity for the danger on nuclear energy (probably reflecting that in the US there is no proper green energy movement and knowledge about this is in general limited). You adding completely wrong information to the discussion does not help improving the situation. So, as a real honest request: Please read up a bit more on this and don't spread pro-nuclear propaganda here.
    - pdonis 7y ago
      > Last time I looked into it not one country had the ability to reprocess the fuel (and how would that work anyway?) Nobody has reprocessing capacity? You don't know how reprocessing would work? Are you serious? http://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/fuel-recycling/processing-of-used-nuclear-fuel.aspx http://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cy... Note the "reprocessing capacity" table. > May I politely invite you to inform yourself a little bit better about this nuclear energy question? I think you are the one who needs to better inform yourself. I definitely think you need to do that before accusing anyone else of claiming falsehoods.