4 ms·

We could just build fission power plants, they're reasonably safe, not too expensive and we know how to store the waste safely, heck - we've built a place to s

by Aloha 7y ago

We could just build fission power plants, they're reasonably safe, not too expensive and we know how to store the waste safely, heck - we've built a place to store it, but until there is political will to overcome the NIMBYism of not wanting to live in the next potential Pripyat (no matter how remote that risk is) nothing will change, except the climate of course.

adrianN 7y ago
We could also just build renewables.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  We're moving fast, but not fast enough. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/hawaiian-electric-finalizes-largest-ever-renewables-procurement/559033/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/hawaiian-electric-finalizes... (Hawaiian Electric finalizes largest-ever renewables procurement) https://www.utilitydive.com/news/new-york-awards-record-1700-mw-offshore-wind-contracts/559091/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/new-york-awards-record-1700... (New York awards record 1,700 MW offshore wind contracts) https://www.utilitydive.com/news/regulators-unanimously-approve-georgia-power-plan-including-80-mw-energy-s/558919/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/regulators-unanimously-appr... (Regulators unanimously approve Georgia Power plan, increasing renewables 72% by 2024) https://www.utilitydive.com/news/aep-plans-2b-15-gw-wind-purchase-in-oklahoma/558828/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/aep-plans-2b-15-gw-wind-pur... (AEP plans $2B, 1.5 GW wind purchase in Oklahoma) https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/12/5/18126920/xcel-energy-100-percent-clean-carbon-free https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/12/5/1812692... (Xcel Energy, one of the biggest utilities in the US, committed to going completely carbon-free by 2050 (and 80 percent carbon-free by 2030).) https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jul/09/eon-uk-to-supply-3m-customers-with-100-renewable-electricity https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jul/09/eon-uk-to-s... (E.ON UK to supply 3.3m customers with 100% renewable electricity)
- Aloha 7y ago
  I'm not convinced that 100% renewables will actually create a resilient network
  - greglindahl 7y ago
    Good thing we have a long, long, long way to go to get anywhere near to 100% renewables.
ForHackernews 7y ago
I was mostly being facetious. We probably don't have enough time left to build fission power plants (and certainly not fusion) before the level of CO2 in the atmosphere will lead inevitably to catastrophic consequences. According to the IPCC, we have to cut global CO2 emissions by 50% before 2030. So your vast fleet of nuclear power plants might just barely be coming online by then. Maybe. If you started getting regulatory approval yesterday and nothing goes wrong at all.
- Aloha 7y ago
  The answer is some sort of sequestration tbh, I've long felt that the idea (even in say, 2005) that we could reduce our carbon output by 50% was unworkable - the only thing that is easy to move to zero carbon is electricity generation, everything else is an order of magnitude harder.
MegaButts 7y ago
> We could just build fission power plants, they're reasonably safe, not too expensive and we know how to store the waste safely I'm not convinced this is true. Obviously there is Chernobyl, but the failures and shortcomings seem to not only be understood but popularized by Western media and we can say "oh that was just the Soviet Union." Then Fukushima happened, in a country which seems to be far better than the US at building efficient, safe infrastructure. We could say that was a fluke and we will learn from it (and I'm sure we will), but how many more times will we need to learn to avoid the literal fallout of another nuclear disaster? Shit goes wrong sometimes and you can't predict it. You can argue that it's still safer (obviously there are lots of nuclear power plants in the US that have had no huge disasters), but why not look at alternatives that are even safer?
- Aloha 7y ago
  The fukushima plant had a poor safety factor, in re the backup cooling power source. It's not as if the disaster happened in a vacuum, there was also a tsunami and the plant was not build outside of a potential tsunami zone.
  - pwinnski 7y ago
    What in America's past suggests that we would build and maintain plants better than Fukushima? Is it our mismanagement of waterways? Our disaster preparedness and response as evidenced after Hurricane Katrina? Our laser-sharp focus on energy policy in government? Yes, Chernobyl was especially bad, and yes there were issues at Fukushima. I think we would avoid Chernobyl-level disasters, but I'm not convinced we would avoid Fukushima-level disasters.
    - Aloha 7y ago
      All are systems engineering failures, we have a pretty good history of building resilient systems. I won't say that a fukushima couldn't happen in the US, but I'd say that the particulars of that disaster are unlikely to happen here (or anywhere else again). We have very few nuclear plants in areas that are even seismically active anymore, much less have any meaningful tsunami risk.
epistasis 7y ago
> not too expensive The evidence does not bear out this part, unfortunately. It's not NIMBYism that has killed the reactors in South Carolina, or is on the way to killing Vogtle's expansion in George, that's just mere construction incompetence. The time to start building nuclear was in 2000-2010; we started, perhaps too small to make a big difference, but in the end it was good that more weren't attempted because it was a gigantic failure and drew far too much money away from better projects. The problem with nuclear power aren't accidents during operation, or NIMBYism, the problem is that we no longer know how to build it. (And once you start looking into the history of construction in the US, it was also often the case that we didn't know how to build them 40 years ago.)

by Aloha 7y ago

adrianN 7y ago

We could also just build renewables.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
toomuchtodo 7y ago
We're moving fast, but not fast enough. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/hawaiian-electric-finalizes-largest-ever-renewables-procurement/559033/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/hawaiian-electric-finalizes... (Hawaiian Electric finalizes largest-ever renewables procurement) https://www.utilitydive.com/news/new-york-awards-record-1700-mw-offshore-wind-contracts/559091/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/new-york-awards-record-1700... (New York awards record 1,700 MW offshore wind contracts) https://www.utilitydive.com/news/regulators-unanimously-approve-georgia-power-plan-including-80-mw-energy-s/558919/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/regulators-unanimously-appr... (Regulators unanimously approve Georgia Power plan, increasing renewables 72% by 2024) https://www.utilitydive.com/news/aep-plans-2b-15-gw-wind-purchase-in-oklahoma/558828/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/aep-plans-2b-15-gw-wind-pur... (AEP plans $2B, 1.5 GW wind purchase in Oklahoma) https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/12/5/18126920/xcel-energy-100-percent-clean-carbon-free https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/12/5/1812692... (Xcel Energy, one of the biggest utilities in the US, committed to going completely carbon-free by 2050 (and 80 percent carbon-free by 2030).) https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jul/09/eon-uk-to-supply-3m-customers-with-100-renewable-electricity https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jul/09/eon-uk-to-s... (E.ON UK to supply 3.3m customers with 100% renewable electricity)
Aloha 7y ago
I'm not convinced that 100% renewables will actually create a resilient network
- greglindahl 7y ago
  Good thing we have a long, long, long way to go to get anywhere near to 100% renewables.

ForHackernews 7y ago

I was mostly being facetious. We probably don't have enough time left to build fission power plants (and certainly not fusion) before the level of CO2 in the atmosphere will lead inevitably to catastrophic consequences. According to the IPCC, we have to cut global CO2 emissions by 50% before 2030. So your vast fleet of nuclear power plants might just barely be coming online by then. Maybe. If you started getting regulatory approval yesterday and nothing goes wrong at all.

Aloha 7y ago
The answer is some sort of sequestration tbh, I've long felt that the idea (even in say, 2005) that we could reduce our carbon output by 50% was unworkable - the only thing that is easy to move to zero carbon is electricity generation, everything else is an order of magnitude harder.

MegaButts 7y ago

> We could just build fission power plants, they're reasonably safe, not too expensive and we know how to store the waste safely I'm not convinced this is true. Obviously there is Chernobyl, but the failures and shortcomings seem to not only be understood but popularized by Western media and we can say "oh that was just the Soviet Union." Then Fukushima happened, in a country which seems to be far better than the US at building efficient, safe infrastructure. We could say that was a fluke and we will learn from it (and I'm sure we will), but how many more times will we need to learn to avoid the literal fallout of another nuclear disaster? Shit goes wrong sometimes and you can't predict it. You can argue that it's still safer (obviously there are lots of nuclear power plants in the US that have had no huge disasters), but why not look at alternatives that are even safer?

Aloha 7y ago
The fukushima plant had a poor safety factor, in re the backup cooling power source. It's not as if the disaster happened in a vacuum, there was also a tsunami and the plant was not build outside of a potential tsunami zone.
- pwinnski 7y ago
  What in America's past suggests that we would build and maintain plants better than Fukushima? Is it our mismanagement of waterways? Our disaster preparedness and response as evidenced after Hurricane Katrina? Our laser-sharp focus on energy policy in government? Yes, Chernobyl was especially bad, and yes there were issues at Fukushima. I think we would avoid Chernobyl-level disasters, but I'm not convinced we would avoid Fukushima-level disasters.
  - Aloha 7y ago
    All are systems engineering failures, we have a pretty good history of building resilient systems. I won't say that a fukushima couldn't happen in the US, but I'd say that the particulars of that disaster are unlikely to happen here (or anywhere else again). We have very few nuclear plants in areas that are even seismically active anymore, much less have any meaningful tsunami risk.

epistasis 7y ago

> not too expensive The evidence does not bear out this part, unfortunately. It's not NIMBYism that has killed the reactors in South Carolina, or is on the way to killing Vogtle's expansion in George, that's just mere construction incompetence. The time to start building nuclear was in 2000-2010; we started, perhaps too small to make a big difference, but in the end it was good that more weren't attempted because it was a gigantic failure and drew far too much money away from better projects. The problem with nuclear power aren't accidents during operation, or NIMBYism, the problem is that we no longer know how to build it. (And once you start looking into the history of construction in the US, it was also often the case that we didn't know how to build them 40 years ago.)