5 ms·

The thing I hate most in nuclear advocacy is the trope of "the new, exciting, safe and economical nuclear reactor based on new, exciting miracle tech!". We hav

by juped 7y ago

The thing I hate most in nuclear advocacy is the trope of "the new, exciting, safe and economical nuclear reactor based on new, exciting miracle tech!". We have amazing, safe, economical, etc. nuclear reactors. They're called nuclear reactors, and don't need any miracle tech conjured up in some magazine columnist's imagination.

acidburnNSA 7y ago
Today's Thorium "hype" was started by a NASA tech named Kirk Sorensen. He outwardly said nuclear needed a rebrand as early as 2008 and has kind of doubled down on it. Like: "Hey all those problems with nuclear are solved if you split this nucleus instead of that one". I agree with you and don't think this is necessary. We should just try to help people see context in the things they don't like about nuclear. The reactor accidents we all have heard about are hard for anyone to compare with 8 million air pollution deaths per year from combustion. But few people know about the Banqiao dam failure that killed 100,000. I read recently that 60% of American's think nuclear reactors contribute to climate change, when in fact they're among the lowest carbon forms of energy known. It's really mostly a PR issue. Nuclear PR money is tied up in utilities which also all run large fossil assets, so it's rare for them to talk about how low carbon nuclear is.
- Baeocystin 7y ago
  There's a reason we call MRI machines MRIs, and not NMRIs. Rebranding around public perception matters, whether we like it or not.
  - acidburnNSA 7y ago
    Yeah, but I think just calling nuclear energy thorium or quantum energy or whatever is too shallow. The nuclear element of nMRI is kind of peripheral, but I don't think anyone will let you do that with mass-to-energy conversion power plants. With airplanes, everyone knows they're really safe. Everyone says they're safer than cars. People are still afraid of airplanes but they're reassured. It'd be nice if nuclear fission could get to this level in the public zeitgeist.
    - runlevel1 7y ago
      > With airplanes, everyone knows they're really safe. Everyone says they're safer than cars. Though true by many metrics, the fact that this has entered into the public zeitgeist is a victory in marketing. While commercial air travel is much safer per hour and per KM, it is less safe by the metric used by the industry and its insurers: Deaths per journey.[1] However, there's a strong argument to be made that time and distance are more relevant to the consumer anyways. Still, the per-journey metric could have been weaponized by an opponent of commercial air travel to assert the opposite. [1]: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16321985-200-flight-into-danger/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16321985-200-flight-i...
  - fsh 7y ago
    I don't buy it. For example in Germany MRI is usually called "Kernspintomographie" ("nuclear spin tomography") and nobody has any issue with that.
    - Baeocystin 7y ago
      It was genuinely a problem here in the US. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4a3e/c44df38873b8bf1e79a30e290d4cbdf9f131.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4a3e/c44df38873b8bf1e79a30e...
    - ahartmetz 7y ago
      Isn't it more commonly called "Magnetresonanztomographie" (MRT) now? Same PR problem, people are scared of atoms.
    - lucb1e 7y ago
      And yet I can't step out my door without finding anti nuclear posters and stickers in Germany. I've never seen this for any other topic: not Jesus, not Snowden asylum, not je suis charlie, but nuclear power? Somehow someone managed to setup a hugely effective brainwashing campaign for that.
    - ryanmercer 7y ago
      And the field in the United States is 'nuclear medicine', a specialty of 'radiology'. And, well, an 'x-ray' is called an 'x-ray' not a 'bone selfie'.
  - paulddraper 7y ago
    > There's a reason we call MRI machines MRIs, and not NMRIs My dad sold microwaves when they were new; they were careful never to say "radiation" or "irradiated" or anything like that.
- theptip 7y ago
  If it’s a PR issue, then wouldn’t a re-branding (I.e. “thorium isn’t the uranium nuclear you know and fear”) be an appropriate solution? At least, assuming thorium isn’t so much worse than current reactor designs?
- thebean11 7y ago
  Nuclear accidents have unique and sometimes unpredictable environment impact, like Fukushima continuing to pollute the ocean with radioactive material to this day. Not saying that's a good reason to swear ourselves off nuclear, but it's more complicated than low carbon emissions.
  - acidburnNSA 7y ago
    I agree that it's complicated. Radiological hazards are indeed pretty unique in the human experience. I disagree that any given release has unpredictable impact though. Top scientists around the world have studied the effects of radiation on living things and the environment in elaborate detail for 80 years. We have vast amounts of good data. This really became political around 1953 as the radioactive fallout from the big atmospheric thermonuclear weapons became extremely serious. The entire environmentalist movement itself was born out of protests against radiological hazards from weapons testing. Where climate science has the IPCC, heath effects of radiation has UNSCEAR [1], a UN-organized international group of top scientists. [1] https://www.unscear.org/ https://www.unscear.org/ The number one argument for nuclear is that it dramatically reduces air pollution deaths by displacing fossil fuel. The carbon-free nature you mention is argument number 2 in my mind. Number 3 is that it can run 24/7 and be deployed in a wide variety of geographies. As for polluting the ocean at Fukushima, I recommend seeing what Jim Conca has to say on it [2]. He's one of the world experts in nuclear waste. [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/09/12/its-really-ok-if-japan-dumps-radioactive-fukushima-water-into-the-ocean/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/09/12/its-reall...
    - evanlivingston 7y ago
      That second article talks a whole lot about how tritium can't hurt humans but then says that keeping the contaminated water in tanks poses a risk to humans...
      - acidburnNSA 7y ago
        I think the second point is that if insist that tanks with tritium are indeed dangerous (which the first point argued against), then you should want the hazard eliminated (by dilution) to avoid hurting living things.
Klinky 7y ago
What is an economical reactor model available to be built today? Practically every commercial reactor built seems to be a multi-billion dollar project that takes years to complete, with cost overruns common.
- nine_k 7y ago
  Fear and doubt -> rare and unique reactors -> no economy of scale -> poor economic results -> more fear and doubt :(
- acidburnNSA 7y ago
  Shipyard-constructed several-hundred-megawatt pressurized water reactors. The Navy has basically achieved economies of mass production with their reactors. The submarine and aircraft carrier weapons systems are expensive, but if you just did something similar for civilian power, I believe you could capture both economies of scale and economies of mass production. For decarbonizing the world very rapidly, this would be my going-in plan (if I could choose). Nuclear success stories are stories of standardization of design and repetition. Most of the boondoggles are first-of-a-kind or first-in-2-decades builds.
  - fsh 7y ago
    Both Chernobyl's RBMK and Fukushima's GE BWR reactors are widely used standard designs.
    - AstralStorm 7y ago
      RBMK were. They're over 50 year old designs now. Fukushima was just 30 years old also generation 2 (but improved) BWR, not the old GE BWR either. The reactors under way are generation III+, notably safer, and further improvements are being made. And many of the reactors now are PWR.
    - lucb1e 7y ago
      Chernobyl was a combination of issues and can't really happen again today. Fukushima is bad but very few people died (counting those that'll get cancer). Many, many, many more people die from the pollution caused by coal every year, and many, many more will die from global warming. If one such failure amongst hundreds of reactors active for over fifty years is the price of saving millions every year, then so be it. We should use solar/wind/water to the full extent possible but not exclude nuclear energy, especially with the latest factor designs. And you can bet that Japan learned from Fukushima and that it's very unlikely that'll reoccur as well. Plus, most reactors aren't built near major fault lines, so this failure isn't even possible in most places. Let's not kill millions because of a TV drama. It's news exactly because it's rare, that's why you don't hear of people dying while installing roof solar or from air pollution.
chillacy 7y ago
The pivot to Thorium is to some extent a marketing issue. The "amazing safe economical" modern reactors have a tarnished reputation, possibly irreversibly so, given the political unpopularity today.

by juped 7y ago

acidburnNSA 7y ago

Today's Thorium "hype" was started by a NASA tech named Kirk Sorensen. He outwardly said nuclear needed a rebrand as early as 2008 and has kind of doubled down on it. Like: "Hey all those problems with nuclear are solved if you split this nucleus instead of that one". I agree with you and don't think this is necessary. We should just try to help people see context in the things they don't like about nuclear. The reactor accidents we all have heard about are hard for anyone to compare with 8 million air pollution deaths per year from combustion. But few people know about the Banqiao dam failure that killed 100,000. I read recently that 60% of American's think nuclear reactors contribute to climate change, when in fact they're among the lowest carbon forms of energy known. It's really mostly a PR issue. Nuclear PR money is tied up in utilities which also all run large fossil assets, so it's rare for them to talk about how low carbon nuclear is.

Baeocystin 7y ago
There's a reason we call MRI machines MRIs, and not NMRIs. Rebranding around public perception matters, whether we like it or not.
- acidburnNSA 7y ago
  Yeah, but I think just calling nuclear energy thorium or quantum energy or whatever is too shallow. The nuclear element of nMRI is kind of peripheral, but I don't think anyone will let you do that with mass-to-energy conversion power plants. With airplanes, everyone knows they're really safe. Everyone says they're safer than cars. People are still afraid of airplanes but they're reassured. It'd be nice if nuclear fission could get to this level in the public zeitgeist.
  - runlevel1 7y ago
    > With airplanes, everyone knows they're really safe. Everyone says they're safer than cars. Though true by many metrics, the fact that this has entered into the public zeitgeist is a victory in marketing. While commercial air travel is much safer per hour and per KM, it is less safe by the metric used by the industry and its insurers: Deaths per journey.[1] However, there's a strong argument to be made that time and distance are more relevant to the consumer anyways. Still, the per-journey metric could have been weaponized by an opponent of commercial air travel to assert the opposite. [1]: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16321985-200-flight-into-danger/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16321985-200-flight-i...
- fsh 7y ago
  I don't buy it. For example in Germany MRI is usually called "Kernspintomographie" ("nuclear spin tomography") and nobody has any issue with that.
  - Baeocystin 7y ago
    It was genuinely a problem here in the US. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4a3e/c44df38873b8bf1e79a30e290d4cbdf9f131.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4a3e/c44df38873b8bf1e79a30e...
  - ahartmetz 7y ago
    Isn't it more commonly called "Magnetresonanztomographie" (MRT) now? Same PR problem, people are scared of atoms.
  - lucb1e 7y ago
    And yet I can't step out my door without finding anti nuclear posters and stickers in Germany. I've never seen this for any other topic: not Jesus, not Snowden asylum, not je suis charlie, but nuclear power? Somehow someone managed to setup a hugely effective brainwashing campaign for that.
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    And the field in the United States is 'nuclear medicine', a specialty of 'radiology'. And, well, an 'x-ray' is called an 'x-ray' not a 'bone selfie'.
- paulddraper 7y ago
  > There's a reason we call MRI machines MRIs, and not NMRIs My dad sold microwaves when they were new; they were careful never to say "radiation" or "irradiated" or anything like that.
theptip 7y ago
If it’s a PR issue, then wouldn’t a re-branding (I.e. “thorium isn’t the uranium nuclear you know and fear”) be an appropriate solution? At least, assuming thorium isn’t so much worse than current reactor designs?
thebean11 7y ago
Nuclear accidents have unique and sometimes unpredictable environment impact, like Fukushima continuing to pollute the ocean with radioactive material to this day. Not saying that's a good reason to swear ourselves off nuclear, but it's more complicated than low carbon emissions.
- acidburnNSA 7y ago
  I agree that it's complicated. Radiological hazards are indeed pretty unique in the human experience. I disagree that any given release has unpredictable impact though. Top scientists around the world have studied the effects of radiation on living things and the environment in elaborate detail for 80 years. We have vast amounts of good data. This really became political around 1953 as the radioactive fallout from the big atmospheric thermonuclear weapons became extremely serious. The entire environmentalist movement itself was born out of protests against radiological hazards from weapons testing. Where climate science has the IPCC, heath effects of radiation has UNSCEAR [1], a UN-organized international group of top scientists. [1] https://www.unscear.org/ https://www.unscear.org/ The number one argument for nuclear is that it dramatically reduces air pollution deaths by displacing fossil fuel. The carbon-free nature you mention is argument number 2 in my mind. Number 3 is that it can run 24/7 and be deployed in a wide variety of geographies. As for polluting the ocean at Fukushima, I recommend seeing what Jim Conca has to say on it [2]. He's one of the world experts in nuclear waste. [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/09/12/its-really-ok-if-japan-dumps-radioactive-fukushima-water-into-the-ocean/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/09/12/its-reall...
  - evanlivingston 7y ago
    That second article talks a whole lot about how tritium can't hurt humans but then says that keeping the contaminated water in tanks poses a risk to humans...
    - acidburnNSA 7y ago
      I think the second point is that if insist that tanks with tritium are indeed dangerous (which the first point argued against), then you should want the hazard eliminated (by dilution) to avoid hurting living things.

Klinky 7y ago

What is an economical reactor model available to be built today? Practically every commercial reactor built seems to be a multi-billion dollar project that takes years to complete, with cost overruns common.

nine_k 7y ago
Fear and doubt -> rare and unique reactors -> no economy of scale -> poor economic results -> more fear and doubt :(
acidburnNSA 7y ago
Shipyard-constructed several-hundred-megawatt pressurized water reactors. The Navy has basically achieved economies of mass production with their reactors. The submarine and aircraft carrier weapons systems are expensive, but if you just did something similar for civilian power, I believe you could capture both economies of scale and economies of mass production. For decarbonizing the world very rapidly, this would be my going-in plan (if I could choose). Nuclear success stories are stories of standardization of design and repetition. Most of the boondoggles are first-of-a-kind or first-in-2-decades builds.
- fsh 7y ago
  Both Chernobyl's RBMK and Fukushima's GE BWR reactors are widely used standard designs.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    RBMK were. They're over 50 year old designs now. Fukushima was just 30 years old also generation 2 (but improved) BWR, not the old GE BWR either. The reactors under way are generation III+, notably safer, and further improvements are being made. And many of the reactors now are PWR.
  - lucb1e 7y ago
    Chernobyl was a combination of issues and can't really happen again today. Fukushima is bad but very few people died (counting those that'll get cancer). Many, many, many more people die from the pollution caused by coal every year, and many, many more will die from global warming. If one such failure amongst hundreds of reactors active for over fifty years is the price of saving millions every year, then so be it. We should use solar/wind/water to the full extent possible but not exclude nuclear energy, especially with the latest factor designs. And you can bet that Japan learned from Fukushima and that it's very unlikely that'll reoccur as well. Plus, most reactors aren't built near major fault lines, so this failure isn't even possible in most places. Let's not kill millions because of a TV drama. It's news exactly because it's rare, that's why you don't hear of people dying while installing roof solar or from air pollution.

chillacy 7y ago

The pivot to Thorium is to some extent a marketing issue. The "amazing safe economical" modern reactors have a tarnished reputation, possibly irreversibly so, given the political unpopularity today.