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> We will see nuclear power make a resurgence around the world, particularly smaller reactors that are easier to build and safer to operate. Funny, I was diggi

> We will see nuclear power make a resurgence around the world, particularly smaller reactors that are easier to build and safer to operate. Funny, I was digging into this issue just this morning. One family member supports Andrew Yang, but another won't support anyone who advocates for nuclear power. Despite Thorium not being fully proven yet, I lean toward agreement with Yang: https://en.howtruthful.com/o/nuclear_power_is_a_crucial_component_in_the_move_towards_creating_sustainable_carbon-free_energy_for_the_united_states/68e13aad02e98d53843bc788f00ff193 https://en.howtruthful.com/o/nuclear_power_is_a_crucial_comp...

deleted 7y ago
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chillacy 7y ago
By the numbers nuclear is very safe but it does have asymmetric risk and most importantly a bad reputation. Next gen nuclear should be a marketing rebrand in addition to new tech. So Yang is right to focus on thorium.
- ianai 7y ago
  Wish these billionaires with good intentions would invest in marketing to revamp public nuclear sentiment. There’s clearly the possibility of progress given how effective other political campaigns are.
  - wallace_f 7y ago
    If most billionaires are optimizing for social image / good will, your idea makes no sense to most of those people.
    - roenxi 7y ago
      On inspection, if they are optimising for social image / good will then a marketing campaign is the obvious starting point.
      - ianai 7y ago
        Their money can market both that nuclear is safe and they’re to be trusted. Plenty of oxygen for both.
      - wallace_f 7y ago
        Do you really believe that a billionaire clearly funding a marketing campaign for themselves would be received well? Charity often does good, but often does not have the intended or apparent result. See William Easterly on the subject.
  - imtringued 7y ago
    If they really cared they would invest into getting rid of the source of the anti nuclear sentiment: shut down obsolete power plants with unsafe designs. Fukushima and Chernobyl happened because everyone ignored this simple advice. Nuclear power plants are so capital intensive that operators keep plants with known design defects or gross mismanagement running.
- Symmetry 7y ago
  Is the asymmetric risk really any worse than hydro-electric, though? The Banquiao Dam failure killed something like an order of magnitude more people than Chernobyl. And there was the recent Oroville Dam incident which didn't kill anyone but it came pretty close to failing catastrophically.
  - cesarb 7y ago
    > Is the asymmetric risk really any worse than hydro-electric, though? Yes. You are only looking at the immediate damage. After the dust settles, with a worst-case nuclear accident you have a heavily contaminated area which cannot be resettled for a long time; after a worst-case hydroelectric accident, you have mostly only water and mud, and can start rebuilding almost immediately.
    - mistermann 7y ago
      Is there an accepted methodology for calculating risk estimations in these situations? I mean, it's essentially speculation afaict, so how do you put a number on it?
      - chillacy 7y ago
        I suspect there's some relevant work in the financial sector, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taleb_distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taleb_distribution
    - ovi256 7y ago
      >a heavily contaminated area which cannot be resettled for a long time That's only with modern risk-avoiding-at-all-costs safety standards. The initial plans for handling Chernobyl, the worst fallout nuclear incident, was to cleanup - which they did - and resettle soon afterward the cleaned up area - which they did not. And now we have that useless extended exclusion zone - a monument to giving in to our fears. Those plans were made before the incident by medical physicists. They were then modified by the party to suit political realities on the ground. Even the authoritarian URSS knew how far it could push people.
amelius 7y ago
Ok but the choice is not democratic in every part of the world. Think e.g. about China.
- deleted 7y ago
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nradov 7y ago
I support nuclear power, however I doubt we will ever see many more reactors built in most countries. The growth of photovoltaic solar power combined with coming cheaper grid scale battery storage is going to wreck the economics for nuclear (including fusion if it ever works).
- brlewis 7y ago
  Solar wrecking the economics for nuclear looks unlikely to me: https://en.howtruthful.com/o/nuclear_power_can_replace_coal_faster_than_solar_and_wind_power_can/e8f49c99776ae26964052d94c41f2641 https://en.howtruthful.com/o/nuclear_power_can_replace_coal_...
  - zik 7y ago
    Check the rate of nuclear power plants being built. It's fallen off a cliff. The people who finance nuclear reactors already think that nuclear power will be uneconomic in the lifetime of any new plants.
    - brlewis 7y ago
      I looked that up. There are 450 plants in operation worldwide and 50 under construction. That sounds like healthy growth. https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/plans-for-new-reactors-worldwide.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-an...
      - imtringued 7y ago
        We will need at least 3x of that amount (assuming 70% renewables). Even if you can somehow build 50 nuclear plants per year it will still take 21 years to build the next 1050.
      - zik 7y ago
        There are a lot being decommissioned at the moment too. I'm not sure if that's more or less than the 50 that the World Nuclear Association page claims are being constructed.
Reedx 7y ago
It's incredibly unfortunate nuclear has such a bad PR problem, as we need it to get to large scale clean energy. If we had properly invested in nuclear earlier, we'd probably be in a much better position today. Now we need to play catchup. It was a smart move by Yang to bring up new technologies, which most don't seem to be aware of yet, and provides a way forward through the PR problem.
Tempest1981 7y ago
TerraPower looks promising -- Safe from meltdown, uses existing nuclear waste as fuel, etc. https://www.geekwire.com/2019/inside-terrapower-nuclear-lab/ https://www.geekwire.com/2019/inside-terrapower-nuclear-lab/ "Nuclear" probably needs a better name -- modern designs have come a long way since Fukushima was built.
- Tempest1981 7y ago
  Downvoted without comment -- honestly curious why it's not promising. Concern about new technology?
aiCeivi9 7y ago
I have been hearing how great Thorium reactor are for last 15 years. Still not commercially available, almost as vaporware as fusion.
justin66 7y ago
> Funny, I was digging into this issue just this morning. One family member supports Andrew Yang, but another won't support anyone who advocates for nuclear power. Just out of curiosity, is the latter part of a generation that will begin to die off in the 2020s?

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[deleted]

chillacy 7y ago

By the numbers nuclear is very safe but it does have asymmetric risk and most importantly a bad reputation. Next gen nuclear should be a marketing rebrand in addition to new tech. So Yang is right to focus on thorium.

ianai 7y ago
Wish these billionaires with good intentions would invest in marketing to revamp public nuclear sentiment. There’s clearly the possibility of progress given how effective other political campaigns are.
- wallace_f 7y ago
  If most billionaires are optimizing for social image / good will, your idea makes no sense to most of those people.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    On inspection, if they are optimising for social image / good will then a marketing campaign is the obvious starting point.
    - ianai 7y ago
      Their money can market both that nuclear is safe and they’re to be trusted. Plenty of oxygen for both.
    - wallace_f 7y ago
      Do you really believe that a billionaire clearly funding a marketing campaign for themselves would be received well? Charity often does good, but often does not have the intended or apparent result. See William Easterly on the subject.
- imtringued 7y ago
  If they really cared they would invest into getting rid of the source of the anti nuclear sentiment: shut down obsolete power plants with unsafe designs. Fukushima and Chernobyl happened because everyone ignored this simple advice. Nuclear power plants are so capital intensive that operators keep plants with known design defects or gross mismanagement running.
Symmetry 7y ago
Is the asymmetric risk really any worse than hydro-electric, though? The Banquiao Dam failure killed something like an order of magnitude more people than Chernobyl. And there was the recent Oroville Dam incident which didn't kill anyone but it came pretty close to failing catastrophically.
- cesarb 7y ago
  > Is the asymmetric risk really any worse than hydro-electric, though? Yes. You are only looking at the immediate damage. After the dust settles, with a worst-case nuclear accident you have a heavily contaminated area which cannot be resettled for a long time; after a worst-case hydroelectric accident, you have mostly only water and mud, and can start rebuilding almost immediately.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    Is there an accepted methodology for calculating risk estimations in these situations? I mean, it's essentially speculation afaict, so how do you put a number on it?
    - chillacy 7y ago
      I suspect there's some relevant work in the financial sector, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taleb_distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taleb_distribution
  - ovi256 7y ago
    >a heavily contaminated area which cannot be resettled for a long time That's only with modern risk-avoiding-at-all-costs safety standards. The initial plans for handling Chernobyl, the worst fallout nuclear incident, was to cleanup - which they did - and resettle soon afterward the cleaned up area - which they did not. And now we have that useless extended exclusion zone - a monument to giving in to our fears. Those plans were made before the incident by medical physicists. They were then modified by the party to suit political realities on the ground. Even the authoritarian URSS knew how far it could push people.

amelius 7y ago

Ok but the choice is not democratic in every part of the world. Think e.g. about China.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

nradov 7y ago

I support nuclear power, however I doubt we will ever see many more reactors built in most countries. The growth of photovoltaic solar power combined with coming cheaper grid scale battery storage is going to wreck the economics for nuclear (including fusion if it ever works).

brlewis 7y ago
Solar wrecking the economics for nuclear looks unlikely to me: https://en.howtruthful.com/o/nuclear_power_can_replace_coal_faster_than_solar_and_wind_power_can/e8f49c99776ae26964052d94c41f2641 https://en.howtruthful.com/o/nuclear_power_can_replace_coal_...
- zik 7y ago
  Check the rate of nuclear power plants being built. It's fallen off a cliff. The people who finance nuclear reactors already think that nuclear power will be uneconomic in the lifetime of any new plants.
  - brlewis 7y ago
    I looked that up. There are 450 plants in operation worldwide and 50 under construction. That sounds like healthy growth. https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/plans-for-new-reactors-worldwide.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-an...
    - imtringued 7y ago
      We will need at least 3x of that amount (assuming 70% renewables). Even if you can somehow build 50 nuclear plants per year it will still take 21 years to build the next 1050.
    - zik 7y ago
      There are a lot being decommissioned at the moment too. I'm not sure if that's more or less than the 50 that the World Nuclear Association page claims are being constructed.

Reedx 7y ago

It's incredibly unfortunate nuclear has such a bad PR problem, as we need it to get to large scale clean energy. If we had properly invested in nuclear earlier, we'd probably be in a much better position today. Now we need to play catchup. It was a smart move by Yang to bring up new technologies, which most don't seem to be aware of yet, and provides a way forward through the PR problem.

Tempest1981 7y ago

TerraPower looks promising -- Safe from meltdown, uses existing nuclear waste as fuel, etc. https://www.geekwire.com/2019/inside-terrapower-nuclear-lab/ https://www.geekwire.com/2019/inside-terrapower-nuclear-lab/ "Nuclear" probably needs a better name -- modern designs have come a long way since Fukushima was built.

Tempest1981 7y ago
Downvoted without comment -- honestly curious why it's not promising. Concern about new technology?

aiCeivi9 7y ago

I have been hearing how great Thorium reactor are for last 15 years. Still not commercially available, almost as vaporware as fusion.

justin66 7y ago

> Funny, I was digging into this issue just this morning. One family member supports Andrew Yang, but another won't support anyone who advocates for nuclear power. Just out of curiosity, is the latter part of a generation that will begin to die off in the 2020s?