5 ms·

I think the issue with safe reactor designs is economic and regulatory / political, instead of intentional. Nuclear power was invented. A few nuclear accidents

by ethbro 7y ago

I think the issue with safe reactor designs is economic and regulatory / political, instead of intentional. Nuclear power was invented. A few nuclear accidents happen. The solution was to put more regulation in place. Regulation increases costs and limits reactor designs (large plants, conservative / pre-existing design). End result? It's impossible to build "safer" reactors, because they're economically uncompetitive under the regulatory burden designed for older reactors. And the regulations never change because no one builds anything but old-style reactors. I understand the DoE and other similar organizations have prototype programs, but from results evaluation they seem to have gaps in the path to production. Essentially, we're letting 1960s nuclear fear of 1960s reactor designs write our regulations instead of science.

barrkel 7y ago
The tail risk on nuclear is so bad that innovation which merely reduces the cost of energy isn't nearly compelling enough. Energy costs (either direct, or indirect via carbon taxes or other pricing in of externalities of burning stuff) need to rise significantly before there will be a real driver in the system. If you want nuclear, you want punitive carbon taxes, or carbon trading with low caps.
- ethbro 7y ago
  I'm not in the field, but it seems like the risk calculation itself could be used as a driver. By shifting the regulatory cost from focusing on lesser risks to catastrophic ones, you could make fundamentally safer reactor designs economically competitive while still retaining the primary political goals (avoidance of major event). I'm concerned but not running around screaming if a reactor leaks tritium. I'm very much the latter if a reactor goes prompt critical.
  - michaelt 7y ago
    It's my understanding governments have considered light-touch regulation of nuclear safety with the policy "any nuclear power plant that can get insurance to cover a $100 billion+ meltdown cost can be built" and the result is nobody can provide such insurance, so no plants get built.
    - ethbro 7y ago
      From an actuarial standpoint, I wouldn't go near nuclear with a 10' pole either. Simply because the population size is too small. In the same way I wouldn't offer SR-71 insurance. That feels like a dodge on the part of regulators.
      - olau 7y ago
        There's an actual actuarial analysis online somewhere, though I can't remember if it's in German, and the problem is not population size, but a nearly unbounded risk. Take a look at Fukushima and think about what would have happened in terms of cost had the wind blown in another direction.
        ethbro 7y ago
        Maybe this? https://www.versicherungsforen.at/portal/media/forschung/studienundumfragen/versicherungsprmiefrkkw/20111006_NPP_Insurance_Study_Versicherungsforen.pdf https://www.versicherungsforen.at/portal/media/forschung/stu... Thanks for the pointer! Will be an interesting read.
- ekimekim 7y ago
  > If you want nuclear, you want punitive carbon taxes I think this is the crux of the issue. Carbon-emitting plants get a free pass on safety and long-term environmental costs, while for nuclear all those things are examined with a fine-tooth comb, then compared to the cost of alternatives without those things. In any regulatory regime that punished carbon emission the same way it did nuclear waste, nuclear contamination, etc, then coal plants would be unthinkable. I was going to say "then nuclear would be obvious", but I'll hold judgement there because I don't know how that would compare to other non-carbon-emitting sources (hydro, solar, etc).
  - anoncake 7y ago
    Carbon-emitting plants are safe. They cause a predictable number of deaths every year. That's a cost, similar to the environmental costs. That doesn't mean they are less bad than nuclear plants but the claim that they are unsafe is just wrong.
- pfdietz 7y ago
  The president of Exelon has stated that for new nuclear to compete with natural gas combined cycle plants in the US, the CO2 tax would have to be in the range of $300-400/tonne. This is very high, and many cheaper alternatives would become available first at lower values of that tax rate.
tomohawk 7y ago
Agree. The only thing I see changing this is possibly reactors developed in another country that solve some of the fundamental problems, and becoming successful there. China comes to mind, but there's so little transparency its hard to tell whats real there.
jopsen 7y ago
The political will to force through long term waste storage is also missing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r... This is fairly cheap, a few hundred million, and in terms of safety it's a no brainer, because the US already has nuclear waste that needs long-term storage. If this can't be solved, it seems almost pointless to dream of new reactors.
- pfdietz 7y ago
  Why solve it? Spent fuel can be stored on the surface, safely and cheaply, in dry casks. And stored on the surface the decay heat dissipates into the atmosphere, rather than building up underground. I have to wonder why burial was being pushed so hard, so early. Maybe they were worried surface repositories would be targets for ground burst nukes in WW3?

by ethbro 7y ago

barrkel 7y ago

The tail risk on nuclear is so bad that innovation which merely reduces the cost of energy isn't nearly compelling enough. Energy costs (either direct, or indirect via carbon taxes or other pricing in of externalities of burning stuff) need to rise significantly before there will be a real driver in the system. If you want nuclear, you want punitive carbon taxes, or carbon trading with low caps.

ethbro 7y ago
I'm not in the field, but it seems like the risk calculation itself could be used as a driver. By shifting the regulatory cost from focusing on lesser risks to catastrophic ones, you could make fundamentally safer reactor designs economically competitive while still retaining the primary political goals (avoidance of major event). I'm concerned but not running around screaming if a reactor leaks tritium. I'm very much the latter if a reactor goes prompt critical.
- michaelt 7y ago
  It's my understanding governments have considered light-touch regulation of nuclear safety with the policy "any nuclear power plant that can get insurance to cover a $100 billion+ meltdown cost can be built" and the result is nobody can provide such insurance, so no plants get built.
  - ethbro 7y ago
    From an actuarial standpoint, I wouldn't go near nuclear with a 10' pole either. Simply because the population size is too small. In the same way I wouldn't offer SR-71 insurance. That feels like a dodge on the part of regulators.
    - olau 7y ago
      There's an actual actuarial analysis online somewhere, though I can't remember if it's in German, and the problem is not population size, but a nearly unbounded risk. Take a look at Fukushima and think about what would have happened in terms of cost had the wind blown in another direction.
      - ethbro 7y ago
        Maybe this? https://www.versicherungsforen.at/portal/media/forschung/studienundumfragen/versicherungsprmiefrkkw/20111006_NPP_Insurance_Study_Versicherungsforen.pdf https://www.versicherungsforen.at/portal/media/forschung/stu... Thanks for the pointer! Will be an interesting read.
ekimekim 7y ago
> If you want nuclear, you want punitive carbon taxes I think this is the crux of the issue. Carbon-emitting plants get a free pass on safety and long-term environmental costs, while for nuclear all those things are examined with a fine-tooth comb, then compared to the cost of alternatives without those things. In any regulatory regime that punished carbon emission the same way it did nuclear waste, nuclear contamination, etc, then coal plants would be unthinkable. I was going to say "then nuclear would be obvious", but I'll hold judgement there because I don't know how that would compare to other non-carbon-emitting sources (hydro, solar, etc).
- anoncake 7y ago
  Carbon-emitting plants are safe. They cause a predictable number of deaths every year. That's a cost, similar to the environmental costs. That doesn't mean they are less bad than nuclear plants but the claim that they are unsafe is just wrong.
pfdietz 7y ago
The president of Exelon has stated that for new nuclear to compete with natural gas combined cycle plants in the US, the CO2 tax would have to be in the range of $300-400/tonne. This is very high, and many cheaper alternatives would become available first at lower values of that tax rate.

tomohawk 7y ago

Agree. The only thing I see changing this is possibly reactors developed in another country that solve some of the fundamental problems, and becoming successful there. China comes to mind, but there's so little transparency its hard to tell whats real there.

jopsen 7y ago

The political will to force through long term waste storage is also missing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r... This is fairly cheap, a few hundred million, and in terms of safety it's a no brainer, because the US already has nuclear waste that needs long-term storage. If this can't be solved, it seems almost pointless to dream of new reactors.

pfdietz 7y ago
Why solve it? Spent fuel can be stored on the surface, safely and cheaply, in dry casks. And stored on the surface the decay heat dissipates into the atmosphere, rather than building up underground. I have to wonder why burial was being pushed so hard, so early. Maybe they were worried surface repositories would be targets for ground burst nukes in WW3?