7 ms·

I oversaw the U.S. nuclear power industry. Now I think it should be banned

36 points by fludlight 7y ago

erentz 7y ago
> As the certainty of climate change grew clearer, nuclear power presented a dilemma for environmentalists: Was the risk of accidents or further spread of nuclear weapons greater than the hazard of climate change? That nuclear weapons are spread by nuclear power is false. The type of nuclear plant that is optimized for producing power does not produce the right kind of products for nuclear weapons. These are produced in reactors more optimized for that task. Second, there are 31 countries operating nuclear power plants, but only 9 countries that have decided to develop nuclear weapons. > In 2016, observing these trends, I launched a company devoted to building offshore wind turbines. There were a lot of assertions in this article, but very little meat to back them up. I'd have liked much more detail on how he thinks alternative energy sources will economically meet all electricity needs globally, and more safely over the full life cycle.
- LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
  The weapons thread is bogus anyway. Elon could have a impactor in every spaceship he launches- and level the city, holding the world ransom. With exponential tech every alien noose hair trimmer allows every individual to departicipate a city. This is uncomfortable territory for the high and mighty. Cause if everyone is el presidente with a football- nobody is special. Either we all live in peace, or nobody does in pieces.
  - kennywinker 7y ago
    Is tech still exponential? Moores law is dead, and we should be glad of it. Change at a scale we can adapt with is good. We’ll be adapting to the havok created by exponential tech for a while to come, but some might say it’s finally slowed down.
- 7952 7y ago
  Regardless, nuclear energy absolutely presents a dilemma for me. I love the dream of what nuclear energy could become. But the reality of the industry at present does not live up to that. That doesn't make it a practical option for investment and that is always a problem. It is right to try and fix that, but in the meantime renewables just make sense as a good option. If the industry can get its act together then nuclear plants will be built. Arguing about how nuclear is better on paper does not help that one bit. It needs to be better in the messy real world.
- thebeefytaco 7y ago
  Nuclear power is by far the cleanest and safest, including wind power. >In England, there were 163 wind turbine accidents that killed 14 people in 2011. Wind produced about 15 billion kWhrs that year, so using a capacity factor of 25%, that translates to about 1,000 deaths per trillion kWhrs produced (the world produces 15 trillion kWhrs per year from all sources). -- https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/09/29/forget-eagle-deaths-wind-turbines-kill-humans/#583acd1b5467 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/09/29/forget-ea... Nuclear power has 0.07 deaths per TWh. (https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy) 1 TWh = 1 billion kWh, so multiply by 1,000 to get trillion kWh and you have ~70 deaths for nuclear, compared to 1,000 for wind per trillion kWh. Fairly small sample size for wind power deaths vs nuclear (someone let me know if you find a better source), but I'd be very surprised if it didn't hold up with a more complete set of data. There have only been a trivial amount of nuclear power related deaths throughout history, with less than 10 deaths in the last 33 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents#Nuclear_power_plant_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident...
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    These are cooked numbers. How many died constructing nuke plants? How many mining, refining, processing, transporting fuel and fuel handling equipment? How many died of radioactive krypton gas poisoning after 3MI? (No, not zero.) Zirconium refining, alone, accounts for plenty of deaths. The author clearly has access to far better information than defenders posting here. Just the fact that all nuke plants in operation were designed to withstand much less severe weather and flooding events than are now expected, with no requirements or plans for improvement, justify shutdown.
    - xelxebar 7y ago
      Then you have to play fair. How many died constructing wind turbines? How many mining, refining, processing, transporting the construction materials and equipment? How many died of pollution generated in the manufacturing process. Etc... Admittedly, I don't know the actual data, but as far as I understand, people have made attempts to factor in these kinds of side costs, like estimating deaths caused by Chernobyl, and even with those factors, nuclear still comes out looking a lot safer. https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy
cududa 7y ago
The guys a wind energy lobbyist. Dunno why WaPo would even publish this
- pensatoio 7y ago
  They published it because it fits their narrative.
  - anfilt 7y ago
    At the top left the article it shows: Perspective - Perspective Discussion of news topics with a point of view, including narratives by individuals regarding their own experiences Honestly, I think news sites should make clear when an article is opinion piece, and therefore should be read critically. That's regardless of what you think of media bias.
    - kennywinker 7y ago
      The whole thing is written from a first-person perspective. It’s titled “... now I think”. It’s so exceedingly obvious that it is an opinion piece, even having the “perspective” line in the header seems like overkill to me....
  - kennywinker 7y ago
    Or because it’s a surprising opinion coming from an nuclear power insider, and people might be interested to read it?
- dases 7y ago
  Maybe because the guy's also a former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission? The article was hardly a wind energy puff piece (no pun intended).
eindiran 7y ago
His Wikipedia page has some very interesting context. The "Policy positions" and "Management style and resignation" sections are very interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Jaczko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Jaczko
anfilt 7y ago
I really wish there was not so much fear mongering around nuclear energy.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  I wish there was not so much mindless boosterism. At no point was there ever a rational expectation of cost-effective nuke power generation, despite all the transparent "too cheap to meter" lies spread at the beginning. The original and remaining purpose was to provide an industrial base for weapons production processes. Money for tokamak fusion research has a similar purpose: a jobs program for high-neutron-flux physicists, to maintain a pool available for weapons work. There is no plausible expectation of ever getting practical power generation from tokamaks.
teslaberry 7y ago
this opinion piece is such garbage, typical washington post biassed journalism. not only that it's poorly written. for gods sakes this asshole doesnt even mention yukka mountain or nuclear waste in general! all he does is discuss catastrophe and catastrophic thinking and basically apologizes for the guaranteed disaster of airpollution and smog caused by 'dirty power factories'. Also solar is incredibly dirty right now to produce. wind ALSO has production tradeoffs. finally , new tech to sluice uranium out of seawater (it is 15 parts per billion naturally! ) may make it incredibly environmentally friendly the guy simply isn't able to put his finger on the real button of corruption in government and industry as the reason why we cannot have nice things. and the answer is innovation and technology, smaller and better nuclear reactor designs and better nuclear chemistry to isolate dangerous elements and bombard them with neutrons to speed up their wasting process. (let's not even go to the thorium and 'recycling' cycles which still have not yet been proven to be commecial viable) nuclear was the future , and it still is. just wait until the rest of the world catches up , india and china are coming with giant power grids, and the west is going to waste away with power shortages and artificially high power prices for many decades to come ......

36 points by fludlight 7y ago

> As the certainty of climate change grew clearer, nuclear power presented a dilemma for environmentalists: Was the risk of accidents or further spread of nuclear weapons greater than the hazard of climate change? That nuclear weapons are spread by nuclear power is false. The type of nuclear plant that is optimized for producing power does not produce the right kind of products for nuclear weapons. These are produced in reactors more optimized for that task. Second, there are 31 countries operating nuclear power plants, but only 9 countries that have decided to develop nuclear weapons. > In 2016, observing these trends, I launched a company devoted to building offshore wind turbines. There were a lot of assertions in this article, but very little meat to back them up. I'd have liked much more detail on how he thinks alternative energy sources will economically meet all electricity needs globally, and more safely over the full life cycle.

LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
The weapons thread is bogus anyway. Elon could have a impactor in every spaceship he launches- and level the city, holding the world ransom. With exponential tech every alien noose hair trimmer allows every individual to departicipate a city. This is uncomfortable territory for the high and mighty. Cause if everyone is el presidente with a football- nobody is special. Either we all live in peace, or nobody does in pieces.
- kennywinker 7y ago
  Is tech still exponential? Moores law is dead, and we should be glad of it. Change at a scale we can adapt with is good. We’ll be adapting to the havok created by exponential tech for a while to come, but some might say it’s finally slowed down.
7952 7y ago
Regardless, nuclear energy absolutely presents a dilemma for me. I love the dream of what nuclear energy could become. But the reality of the industry at present does not live up to that. That doesn't make it a practical option for investment and that is always a problem. It is right to try and fix that, but in the meantime renewables just make sense as a good option. If the industry can get its act together then nuclear plants will be built. Arguing about how nuclear is better on paper does not help that one bit. It needs to be better in the messy real world.
thebeefytaco 7y ago
Nuclear power is by far the cleanest and safest, including wind power. >In England, there were 163 wind turbine accidents that killed 14 people in 2011. Wind produced about 15 billion kWhrs that year, so using a capacity factor of 25%, that translates to about 1,000 deaths per trillion kWhrs produced (the world produces 15 trillion kWhrs per year from all sources). -- https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/09/29/forget-eagle-deaths-wind-turbines-kill-humans/#583acd1b5467 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/09/29/forget-ea... Nuclear power has 0.07 deaths per TWh. (https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy) 1 TWh = 1 billion kWh, so multiply by 1,000 to get trillion kWh and you have ~70 deaths for nuclear, compared to 1,000 for wind per trillion kWh. Fairly small sample size for wind power deaths vs nuclear (someone let me know if you find a better source), but I'd be very surprised if it didn't hold up with a more complete set of data. There have only been a trivial amount of nuclear power related deaths throughout history, with less than 10 deaths in the last 33 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents#Nuclear_power_plant_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident...
- ncmncm 7y ago
  These are cooked numbers. How many died constructing nuke plants? How many mining, refining, processing, transporting fuel and fuel handling equipment? How many died of radioactive krypton gas poisoning after 3MI? (No, not zero.) Zirconium refining, alone, accounts for plenty of deaths. The author clearly has access to far better information than defenders posting here. Just the fact that all nuke plants in operation were designed to withstand much less severe weather and flooding events than are now expected, with no requirements or plans for improvement, justify shutdown.
  - xelxebar 7y ago
    Then you have to play fair. How many died constructing wind turbines? How many mining, refining, processing, transporting the construction materials and equipment? How many died of pollution generated in the manufacturing process. Etc... Admittedly, I don't know the actual data, but as far as I understand, people have made attempts to factor in these kinds of side costs, like estimating deaths caused by Chernobyl, and even with those factors, nuclear still comes out looking a lot safer. https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy

cududa 7y ago

The guys a wind energy lobbyist. Dunno why WaPo would even publish this

pensatoio 7y ago
They published it because it fits their narrative.
- anfilt 7y ago
  At the top left the article it shows: Perspective - Perspective Discussion of news topics with a point of view, including narratives by individuals regarding their own experiences Honestly, I think news sites should make clear when an article is opinion piece, and therefore should be read critically. That's regardless of what you think of media bias.
  - kennywinker 7y ago
    The whole thing is written from a first-person perspective. It’s titled “... now I think”. It’s so exceedingly obvious that it is an opinion piece, even having the “perspective” line in the header seems like overkill to me....
- kennywinker 7y ago
  Or because it’s a surprising opinion coming from an nuclear power insider, and people might be interested to read it?
dases 7y ago
Maybe because the guy's also a former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission? The article was hardly a wind energy puff piece (no pun intended).

eindiran 7y ago

His Wikipedia page has some very interesting context. The "Policy positions" and "Management style and resignation" sections are very interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Jaczko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Jaczko

anfilt 7y ago

I really wish there was not so much fear mongering around nuclear energy.

ncmncm 7y ago
I wish there was not so much mindless boosterism. At no point was there ever a rational expectation of cost-effective nuke power generation, despite all the transparent "too cheap to meter" lies spread at the beginning. The original and remaining purpose was to provide an industrial base for weapons production processes. Money for tokamak fusion research has a similar purpose: a jobs program for high-neutron-flux physicists, to maintain a pool available for weapons work. There is no plausible expectation of ever getting practical power generation from tokamaks.

teslaberry 7y ago

this opinion piece is such garbage, typical washington post biassed journalism. not only that it's poorly written. for gods sakes this asshole doesnt even mention yukka mountain or nuclear waste in general! all he does is discuss catastrophe and catastrophic thinking and basically apologizes for the guaranteed disaster of airpollution and smog caused by 'dirty power factories'. Also solar is incredibly dirty right now to produce. wind ALSO has production tradeoffs. finally , new tech to sluice uranium out of seawater (it is 15 parts per billion naturally! ) may make it incredibly environmentally friendly the guy simply isn't able to put his finger on the real button of corruption in government and industry as the reason why we cannot have nice things. and the answer is innovation and technology, smaller and better nuclear reactor designs and better nuclear chemistry to isolate dangerous elements and bombard them with neutrons to speed up their wasting process. (let's not even go to the thorium and 'recycling' cycles which still have not yet been proven to be commecial viable) nuclear was the future , and it still is. just wait until the rest of the world catches up , india and china are coming with giant power grids, and the west is going to waste away with power shortages and artificially high power prices for many decades to come ......