5 ms·

What is more important than deaths/twh? Costs? I would disagree. Perhaps, area lost to contamination (e. g. Chernobyl exclusion zone, Fukushima area). But then,

• api 7y ago
  It's important in terms of adoption. Fukushima destroyed the economics of Japanese nuclear power. One accident like that per 100 years and nuclear suddenly becomes very expensive.
  • option 7y ago
    global warming has sever long term consequences for economies as well. People need energy, problem is that the costs of dirty energy are spread out and “average Joe” doesn’t think of them as energy costs (pollution, worse health, wars for oil, etc.)
• rfrey 7y ago
  I don't think amluto said the clean-up costs were more important than deaths/kwh. The point is that these improvements are necessary and welcome even though nuclear is already safer than the options, for reasons other than safety.
  • amluto 7y ago
    Indeed. If I were a nuclear regulator, I would not permit construction of a plant that could, by design, be a danger to anything other than itself if it lost power. I would also consider requiring existing plants to retrofit themselves to have the same property if the technology became available.
    • darkpuma 7y ago
      > "I would not permit construction of a plant that could, by design, be a danger to anything other than itself if it lost power." What about a plant that's a danger to others when it's running optimally within design spec, as every single coal fired plant on this planet is? Do you apply this standard to all power plants, or only nuclear?
      • amluto 7y ago
        I think that, even in an appropriately regulated and taxed environment, coal has a place. In particular, fly ash can replace a respectable fraction of the cement used in concrete. If a coal-fired power plant can scrub its emissions to remove particulates and CO2, it may be cost effective as a source of fly ash compared to the (taxed) cost of cement production. I'm skeptical that "clean coal" will ever be cost-effective when considered purely as a source of power in most locations.
        • darkpuma 7y ago
          As far as I'm aware coal (particularly coke) plays a vital role in the production of steel, so I don't expect we'll do away with it anytime soon. But it's very frustrating to see coal being given a free pass by critics of nuclear, particularly when those critics call themselves environmentalists.
          • pfdietz 7y ago
            One can make steel without using coal or coke. Some steel is made this way even today ("Direct Reduced Iron", particularly the mode where iron ore is reduced with syngas made with natural gas). Hydrogen could be used instead of syngas to do this reduction, and the amount of carbon that would be needed to make the final alloy would be small, and could be sourced from non-fossil sources.
        • robocat 7y ago
          > coal has a place [snip] in particular, fly ash can replace a respectable fraction of the cement used in concrete. AFAIK fly ash is mostly used as a replacement for other filler (sand etc)... Using fly ash doesn't change the amount of CO2 produced per m3 of concrete. I am struggling to understand what your point is here. Also fly ash is generally a single digit percentage by coal weight burnt. So say 90% of coal burns with oxygen, most of which ends up as CO2 (by weight). Using the fly ash waste (from electricity generation) in concrete makes sense. Burning coal to indirectly justify making cement does not.
    • AngryData 7y ago
      I would say any plant that was built before maybe the 2000s, which is admittedly a lot, should just be decommissioned, with more modern plants replacing them. Our main risks with nuclear plants is that most of the plants are at or around the 50 year point, which not only is about their original planned lifespan, but also absolutely ancient in terms of design and technology. Yeah they have been improved, but only so much as an already built plant can be modified for cheap. When people talk about nuclear safety, they are thinking about plants designed only 15 years after we invented nuclear technology. Talking about the safety of Fukushima, or Chernobyl, or many other plants is the equivalent of discussing the crash safety of a Model-T instead of a 2010+ model car, and has people wondering if cars should even be allowed based on the Model-T's design.