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Hydro can actually (easily) keep up with nuclear in terms of power capacity and actual generated energy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_power_sta

Hydro can actually (easily) keep up with nuclear in terms of power capacity and actual generated energy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_power_stations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_power_stations

shawnz 7y ago
Hydro is on par with nuclear in capacity, but has caused an order of magnitude more deaths per kWh. EDIT: Almost an order of magnitude if you take the favorable numbers https://www.businessinsider.com/dam-safety-statistics-risk-of-death-2017-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/dam-safety-statistics-risk-o...
- beerandt 7y ago
  1.3x-8x multiplier per that source
  - philwelch 7y ago
    8x is about 90% of an order of magnitude (calculated via log-base-10 of 8).
    - beerandt 7y ago
      Just meant to clarify, not dispute. Mostly because 1.3x is only 11%.
- klingonopera 7y ago
  Given the most favorable estimate for nuclear (0.2) and the most deadly for hydro (1.6) from that source, that's not even a single full magnitude. Flip the favorable/deadly bias around, and hydro looks to be safer (1.0 vs. 1.2). EDIT: Also, what's with that variance on nuclear? Another thing is that calculating the long term effects of nuclear fallout is quite difficult. How much evidence for and against could we have for rising cancer rates in Europe since 1986? (I don't actually know what the cancer rates are, but figuring out causation is probably very difficult, and may or may not have something to do with Chernobyl)
  - beerandt 7y ago
    You sort of answered your own question re variance. I was shocked, after growing up hearing how horribly deadly Chernobyl was, to discover there were only 30 directly related deaths. Maybe 60 for eventual cancer deaths for people that were actually on-site. But some studies claim 60,000+ cancer related deaths, and growing up, I always assumed there was a morgue somewhere that had thousands of victims piling up in the weeks after meltdown. I felt duped to find that wasn't the case. And cancer rates in general have been rising for 80+ years, so yes, causation is difficult.
    - bb88 7y ago
      > there were only 30 directly related deaths A better statement would have been that "the soviet union reported 31 immediate deaths at the time". That 30 number was highly disputed unto itself, and doesn't include fatal cancers directly caused by radiation exposure. There's an entire wikipedia page about it if you're interested in learning more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di...
      - beerandt 7y ago
        I'm familiar with all the various claims. Although I haven't seen anything seriously disputing the 31 on-site number, beyond +/-5. I said >>Maybe 60 for eventual cancer deaths for people that were actually on-site. It's the 10,000+ numbers that I take real issue with. And am skeptical of even the 4,000 "agreed-upon" estimate. I don't doubt radiation was released. I don't doubt radiation exposure can increase risk of cancer. But when you need statistical methods to calculate deaths, that's just not as meaningful as counting body bags on-site. I get that radiation plays a part in increased cancer risk. Claiming that there were 1,010,000 cancer deaths, but there should have only been 1,000,000, and not being able to tell which 10,000 were "caused by Chernobyl" is problematic for me. It diminishes the pain of the other 1,000,000. Is this logical? Idk Some studies in Fukushima claim over 1,000 more people have died by continued forced evacuation, than if they been had been allowed to return to the exclusion zone after a few weeks. It just gets hard to take these numbers seriously when you only have statistical speculation to rely on. Moreso to treat them with the same equivalence as deaths on-site.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  >Hydro is on par with nuclear in capacity, but has caused an order of magnitude more deaths per kWh. Is this factoring in all future deaths from existing nuclear incidents? If nuclear causes 1 death a year for 500 years and hydro causes 100 immediate deaths, which one is more lethal? Also consider the morality of pushing the costs of a failure generations down the road.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    The UN estimates (https://www.un.org/press/en/2005/dev2539.doc.htm https://www.un.org/press/en/2005/dev2539.doc.htm) 4,000 deaths total for Chernobyl. The EPA estimates zero deaths for Three Mile Island. The worst dam failure in history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam) killed somewhere between 150,000 and 230,000 people. Hydro has a big head start.
    - koheripbal 7y ago
      Chernobyl is so different from a modern reactor, that it's not really useful to judge to current risks with existing reactors, let alone planned new Gen III+ reactors which are orders of magnitudes safer.
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        In fairness, the same is probably true for dams, as well - we've gotten a lot better at engineering them.
        geggam 7y ago
        Recent California flooding makes me question this.
        beerandt 7y ago
        Yea, people talk about not being able to fully predict nuclear disasters, then turn around and claim sun, rain, and wind are totally predictive enough to rely on. I get that the risks vary, but man, a lot of people really don't understand statistics and probability.
- afiori 7y ago
  Everyone agree that statistics are on the side of nuclear power. The problem is that in the case of a very wrong accident the consequences can be very dire, as in transforming half a continent in nuclear wasteland. The question is how much we want to trust the risk.
  - blacksmith_tb 7y ago
    Half a continent? The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone[1] is 30km in diameter, Fukashima's is 20km I believe[2]. Obviously a nightmare if you happen to live in the neighborhood, but I don't think there are any nuclear power plants big enough to turn even a small country into a "nuclear wasteland". 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone 2: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/oct/11/radioactive-wreckage-inside-fukushimas-nuclear-exclusion-zone-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/oct/11...
    - deeg 7y ago
      The sum total of exclusion zones due to nuclear power is tiny when compared to the exclusion zone that will be created by rising sea levels due to global warming.
  - shawnz 7y ago
    No, that is not a valid counterargument to the statistical argument of Nuclear's safety. One catastrophic accident is not necessarily worse than many small accidents. In fact that's the whole point behind the argument.
    - afiori 7y ago
      I agree that my comment was ill formed. My point was that when comparing the kind of worst case scenario of nuclear against other energies you get a very different result. In part I am also worried about nuclear power plants in case of war. I understand that there are many advantages on many sides, but in my opinion it is not worth it considering what could happen if thing go very wrong.
beerandt 7y ago
As long as there isn't a drought.
- klingonopera 7y ago
  ...probably lots of solar power then, and the excess energy during the day can be used to pump up the remaining water into the hydro reservoir for energy at night. And that's only if they build a hydroelectric dam somewhere where it runs such a risk. They aren't cheap either, and I doubt they'd just build one without careful considerations beforehand.
  - beerandt 7y ago
    1- people like to look at renewables as complimentary to one another. Sometimes it's true, but it's not usually efficient (yet), because you have to significantly over build support infrastructure for a given supply of power. And it's the opposite- you would want hydro to supplement solar or wind (as it's got some on-demand flexiblity) and you could use it to saturate distribution lines when sun/wind is lacking. It takes scaling waaay up to make smart grid load-balancing efficient. Batteries will eventually help this, but they have their own problems that people like to ignore. If you build renewable power generation, but still have to build a backup power plant, the renewables lose a big chunk of efficiency by the very nature of that plants existence (in the form of wasted embedded energy/cost). You could choose to also operate the backup regularly, but then you need to over-build transmission capacity, and you're admitting defeat in needing to operate non-renewables to justify the renewables. As usual, it's complicated. But it doesn't make sense to rely on solar to supplement hydro during a drought. 2-You're talking about hydraulic storage, which is really inefficient, but has some valid use-cases. But drought isn't one of them, for quite a few reasons. If there's a water shortage you want (and are probably treaty bound) to allow that water to flow downstream. By definition, dams were favored in places with irregular rainfall patterns, because in most cases, flood control was the primary use. If applicable, navigation is typically a primary or secondary use. If the area is also dry, irrigation supply is secondary / tertiary use. Power generation is usually last; a happy by-product except in a few cases- with the Manhatten project being the prime example. Sometimes flexiblity allows for on-demand operation, but only after the other use conditions are satisfied (usually during fall draw-down). But even TVA dams operate based primarily on flood control parameters.
ImprovedSilence 7y ago
I believe hydro is also used by nuclear plants in the situation where they need a dark start.
- jandrese 7y ago
  Maybe in one plant somewhere, but that's not common. Not unless you're talking about the plant using grid power that just happens to come from a Hydro plant.
  - kragen 7y ago
    No? Where do nuclear grids usually get black start capacity?
    - ars 7y ago
      "To provide a black start, some power stations have small diesel generators, normally called the black start diesel generator (BSDG), which can be used to start larger generators (of several megawatts capacity), which in turn can be used to start the main power station generators." i.e. you don't need someone else's power plant, you can have a small one dedicated to black start. Yes, hydro works really well for this. But it's not the only option.
      - kragen 7y ago
        Sure, it's not the only option, but isn't it the most common option? I admit I don't know much about black start.
        p_l 7y ago
        The never finished first polish NPP had hydroelectric starter in the form of pumping water plant built with reservoir on nearby hill. But that kind of setup appears to be pretty rare.
        beerandt 7y ago
macspoofing 7y ago
Nuclear, Hydro and Geothermal are pretty much the only energy sources that are truly fossil-fuel free and are able to replace coal and natural gas - though hydro/geothermal need particular geography for them to be viable. Hydro does have huge detrimental environmental impact but it's probably worth it. Anyway, everytime there is some headline blaring about some region or country being 99% renewable based (for example, Costa Rica[1]) is because it leverages one or more of those. For example, here's a live view of the energy of my home province: http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html .. we're pretty much carbon free because of Nuclear and Hydro. On the other end, Germany decided to go with solar and wind and they aren't expected to be carbon-free until 2060s because they need natural gas as backup. This is also why they are spending billions on pipelines to ship MORE natural gas from Russia. Makes you wonder why we're bothering with solar and wind, which can't power a modern economy without fossil-fuel backup and therefore are only good for niche applications. [1]https://ticotimes.net/2019/09/24/costa-rica-will-run-on-more-than-98-renewable-energy-for-fifth-consecutive-year-government-says https://ticotimes.net/2019/09/24/costa-rica-will-run-on-more...
- beat 7y ago
  Solar and wind are much cheaper. That's why.
  - macspoofing 7y ago
    They aren't, but let's say for argument that they are. So what? If they can't actually replace coal and natural gas, then what's the point? And they can't. Solar and wind are intermittent power sources, meaning that there are times when you aren't generating any energy because the sun ain't shining and the wind ain't blowing. There is also no battery technology that can scale to the level of cities or nations for a period of hours, days or weeks (and we would need around 8 to 16 weeks of storage to bridge seasonal intermittency). Instead what we're seeing are those regions that heavily invest in solar and wind need to make a comparable investment in natural gas to make them viable.
    - kragen 7y ago
kragen 7y ago
Nuclear plants only need cooling water. Hydroelectric plants additionally need steep valleys and steep drops. Many fewer of those are available; that's why hydro plants tend to be so enormous. So the total capacity of nuclear power is immensely greater. However, it's mostly a moot point now that photovoltaic is so cheap.
a012 7y ago
Technical aside, but China built a dam at upstream of Mekong River and then control the water level of the river downstream, risking lives on the banks of multiple countries like Myanmar, Cambodia, Lao, Thailand, and Vietnam.

shawnz 7y ago

Hydro is on par with nuclear in capacity, but has caused an order of magnitude more deaths per kWh. EDIT: Almost an order of magnitude if you take the favorable numbers https://www.businessinsider.com/dam-safety-statistics-risk-of-death-2017-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/dam-safety-statistics-risk-o...

beerandt 7y ago
1.3x-8x multiplier per that source
- philwelch 7y ago
  8x is about 90% of an order of magnitude (calculated via log-base-10 of 8).
  - beerandt 7y ago
    Just meant to clarify, not dispute. Mostly because 1.3x is only 11%.
klingonopera 7y ago
Given the most favorable estimate for nuclear (0.2) and the most deadly for hydro (1.6) from that source, that's not even a single full magnitude. Flip the favorable/deadly bias around, and hydro looks to be safer (1.0 vs. 1.2). EDIT: Also, what's with that variance on nuclear? Another thing is that calculating the long term effects of nuclear fallout is quite difficult. How much evidence for and against could we have for rising cancer rates in Europe since 1986? (I don't actually know what the cancer rates are, but figuring out causation is probably very difficult, and may or may not have something to do with Chernobyl)
- beerandt 7y ago
  You sort of answered your own question re variance. I was shocked, after growing up hearing how horribly deadly Chernobyl was, to discover there were only 30 directly related deaths. Maybe 60 for eventual cancer deaths for people that were actually on-site. But some studies claim 60,000+ cancer related deaths, and growing up, I always assumed there was a morgue somewhere that had thousands of victims piling up in the weeks after meltdown. I felt duped to find that wasn't the case. And cancer rates in general have been rising for 80+ years, so yes, causation is difficult.
  - bb88 7y ago
    > there were only 30 directly related deaths A better statement would have been that "the soviet union reported 31 immediate deaths at the time". That 30 number was highly disputed unto itself, and doesn't include fatal cancers directly caused by radiation exposure. There's an entire wikipedia page about it if you're interested in learning more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di...
    - beerandt 7y ago
      I'm familiar with all the various claims. Although I haven't seen anything seriously disputing the 31 on-site number, beyond +/-5. I said >>Maybe 60 for eventual cancer deaths for people that were actually on-site. It's the 10,000+ numbers that I take real issue with. And am skeptical of even the 4,000 "agreed-upon" estimate. I don't doubt radiation was released. I don't doubt radiation exposure can increase risk of cancer. But when you need statistical methods to calculate deaths, that's just not as meaningful as counting body bags on-site. I get that radiation plays a part in increased cancer risk. Claiming that there were 1,010,000 cancer deaths, but there should have only been 1,000,000, and not being able to tell which 10,000 were "caused by Chernobyl" is problematic for me. It diminishes the pain of the other 1,000,000. Is this logical? Idk Some studies in Fukushima claim over 1,000 more people have died by continued forced evacuation, than if they been had been allowed to return to the exclusion zone after a few weeks. It just gets hard to take these numbers seriously when you only have statistical speculation to rely on. Moreso to treat them with the same equivalence as deaths on-site.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
SkyBelow 7y ago
>Hydro is on par with nuclear in capacity, but has caused an order of magnitude more deaths per kWh. Is this factoring in all future deaths from existing nuclear incidents? If nuclear causes 1 death a year for 500 years and hydro causes 100 immediate deaths, which one is more lethal? Also consider the morality of pushing the costs of a failure generations down the road.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  The UN estimates (https://www.un.org/press/en/2005/dev2539.doc.htm https://www.un.org/press/en/2005/dev2539.doc.htm) 4,000 deaths total for Chernobyl. The EPA estimates zero deaths for Three Mile Island. The worst dam failure in history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam) killed somewhere between 150,000 and 230,000 people. Hydro has a big head start.
  - koheripbal 7y ago
    Chernobyl is so different from a modern reactor, that it's not really useful to judge to current risks with existing reactors, let alone planned new Gen III+ reactors which are orders of magnitudes safer.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      In fairness, the same is probably true for dams, as well - we've gotten a lot better at engineering them.
      - geggam 7y ago
        Recent California flooding makes me question this.
        beerandt 7y ago
        Yea, people talk about not being able to fully predict nuclear disasters, then turn around and claim sun, rain, and wind are totally predictive enough to rely on. I get that the risks vary, but man, a lot of people really don't understand statistics and probability.
afiori 7y ago
Everyone agree that statistics are on the side of nuclear power. The problem is that in the case of a very wrong accident the consequences can be very dire, as in transforming half a continent in nuclear wasteland. The question is how much we want to trust the risk.
- blacksmith_tb 7y ago
  Half a continent? The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone[1] is 30km in diameter, Fukashima's is 20km I believe[2]. Obviously a nightmare if you happen to live in the neighborhood, but I don't think there are any nuclear power plants big enough to turn even a small country into a "nuclear wasteland". 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone 2: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/oct/11/radioactive-wreckage-inside-fukushimas-nuclear-exclusion-zone-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/oct/11...
  - deeg 7y ago
    The sum total of exclusion zones due to nuclear power is tiny when compared to the exclusion zone that will be created by rising sea levels due to global warming.
- shawnz 7y ago
  No, that is not a valid counterargument to the statistical argument of Nuclear's safety. One catastrophic accident is not necessarily worse than many small accidents. In fact that's the whole point behind the argument.
  - afiori 7y ago
    I agree that my comment was ill formed. My point was that when comparing the kind of worst case scenario of nuclear against other energies you get a very different result. In part I am also worried about nuclear power plants in case of war. I understand that there are many advantages on many sides, but in my opinion it is not worth it considering what could happen if thing go very wrong.

beerandt 7y ago

As long as there isn't a drought.

klingonopera 7y ago
...probably lots of solar power then, and the excess energy during the day can be used to pump up the remaining water into the hydro reservoir for energy at night. And that's only if they build a hydroelectric dam somewhere where it runs such a risk. They aren't cheap either, and I doubt they'd just build one without careful considerations beforehand.
- beerandt 7y ago
  1- people like to look at renewables as complimentary to one another. Sometimes it's true, but it's not usually efficient (yet), because you have to significantly over build support infrastructure for a given supply of power. And it's the opposite- you would want hydro to supplement solar or wind (as it's got some on-demand flexiblity) and you could use it to saturate distribution lines when sun/wind is lacking. It takes scaling waaay up to make smart grid load-balancing efficient. Batteries will eventually help this, but they have their own problems that people like to ignore. If you build renewable power generation, but still have to build a backup power plant, the renewables lose a big chunk of efficiency by the very nature of that plants existence (in the form of wasted embedded energy/cost). You could choose to also operate the backup regularly, but then you need to over-build transmission capacity, and you're admitting defeat in needing to operate non-renewables to justify the renewables. As usual, it's complicated. But it doesn't make sense to rely on solar to supplement hydro during a drought. 2-You're talking about hydraulic storage, which is really inefficient, but has some valid use-cases. But drought isn't one of them, for quite a few reasons. If there's a water shortage you want (and are probably treaty bound) to allow that water to flow downstream. By definition, dams were favored in places with irregular rainfall patterns, because in most cases, flood control was the primary use. If applicable, navigation is typically a primary or secondary use. If the area is also dry, irrigation supply is secondary / tertiary use. Power generation is usually last; a happy by-product except in a few cases- with the Manhatten project being the prime example. Sometimes flexiblity allows for on-demand operation, but only after the other use conditions are satisfied (usually during fall draw-down). But even TVA dams operate based primarily on flood control parameters.

ImprovedSilence 7y ago

I believe hydro is also used by nuclear plants in the situation where they need a dark start.

jandrese 7y ago
Maybe in one plant somewhere, but that's not common. Not unless you're talking about the plant using grid power that just happens to come from a Hydro plant.
- kragen 7y ago
  No? Where do nuclear grids usually get black start capacity?
  - ars 7y ago
    "To provide a black start, some power stations have small diesel generators, normally called the black start diesel generator (BSDG), which can be used to start larger generators (of several megawatts capacity), which in turn can be used to start the main power station generators." i.e. you don't need someone else's power plant, you can have a small one dedicated to black start. Yes, hydro works really well for this. But it's not the only option.
    - kragen 7y ago
      Sure, it's not the only option, but isn't it the most common option? I admit I don't know much about black start.
      - p_l 7y ago
        The never finished first polish NPP had hydroelectric starter in the form of pumping water plant built with reservoir on nearby hill. But that kind of setup appears to be pretty rare.
      - beerandt 7y ago

macspoofing 7y ago

Nuclear, Hydro and Geothermal are pretty much the only energy sources that are truly fossil-fuel free and are able to replace coal and natural gas - though hydro/geothermal need particular geography for them to be viable. Hydro does have huge detrimental environmental impact but it's probably worth it. Anyway, everytime there is some headline blaring about some region or country being 99% renewable based (for example, Costa Rica[1]) is because it leverages one or more of those. For example, here's a live view of the energy of my home province: http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html .. we're pretty much carbon free because of Nuclear and Hydro. On the other end, Germany decided to go with solar and wind and they aren't expected to be carbon-free until 2060s because they need natural gas as backup. This is also why they are spending billions on pipelines to ship MORE natural gas from Russia. Makes you wonder why we're bothering with solar and wind, which can't power a modern economy without fossil-fuel backup and therefore are only good for niche applications. [1]https://ticotimes.net/2019/09/24/costa-rica-will-run-on-more-than-98-renewable-energy-for-fifth-consecutive-year-government-says https://ticotimes.net/2019/09/24/costa-rica-will-run-on-more...

beat 7y ago
Solar and wind are much cheaper. That's why.
- macspoofing 7y ago
  They aren't, but let's say for argument that they are. So what? If they can't actually replace coal and natural gas, then what's the point? And they can't. Solar and wind are intermittent power sources, meaning that there are times when you aren't generating any energy because the sun ain't shining and the wind ain't blowing. There is also no battery technology that can scale to the level of cities or nations for a period of hours, days or weeks (and we would need around 8 to 16 weeks of storage to bridge seasonal intermittency). Instead what we're seeing are those regions that heavily invest in solar and wind need to make a comparable investment in natural gas to make them viable.
  - kragen 7y ago

kragen 7y ago

Nuclear plants only need cooling water. Hydroelectric plants additionally need steep valleys and steep drops. Many fewer of those are available; that's why hydro plants tend to be so enormous. So the total capacity of nuclear power is immensely greater. However, it's mostly a moot point now that photovoltaic is so cheap.

a012 7y ago

Technical aside, but China built a dam at upstream of Mekong River and then control the water level of the river downstream, risking lives on the banks of multiple countries like Myanmar, Cambodia, Lao, Thailand, and Vietnam.