4 ms·

What still scares me about nuclear power is the black swan events. If we have 100,000 reactors spread across the world, what’s the likelihood that over 100 year

What still scares me about nuclear power is the black swan events. If we have 100,000 reactors spread across the world, what’s the likelihood that over 100 years one of them, I don’t know, gets hit by a meteor and contaminates half a continent? With enough reactor over enough time there is bound to be one or two that fail catastrophically, right?

xupybd 7y ago
But are those one or two catastrophies worse than the alternative. We know coal kills thousands each year and harms the planet. Would the net impact of Nuclear be better than running the current course. Ideally we'd use renewables but there are limits to the current tech that need to be solved before we can go 100%.
- Areading314 7y ago
  You can't heat your house in winter with wind + solar. For a carbon-free world, you need nuclear, period.
  - xupybd 7y ago
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261919317660 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626191... In this paper the authors model renewables in Artic isolated settlements. It's only a model but looks promising.
  - crdoconnor 7y ago
    Why not? Wind is a ~50% cheaper source of energy per kWh than nuclear. Edit : apparently the answer to this question is "downvote" :)
    - Recurecur 7y ago
      > Why not? Wind is a ~50% cheaper source of energy per kWh than nuclear. That's an illusory number. Wind requires backup power, or lots of storage. Wind turbines have a ~20 year lifespan, compared with ~60 years for coal/nuclear plants. Once the safety and economies of mass-produced Gen IV SMRs are accounted for, nuclear is MUCH cheaper than wind. What would be really bad would be the first time thousands of people die when the wind/solar powered grid goes down during a cold snap.
  - pmoriarty 7y ago
    "You can't heat your house in winter with wind + solar" I know someone who actually did heat their home through some pretty brutal winters using just solar heat.. and a pretty simple setup he jury-rigged himself, at that. So it can be done. There are also energy storage technologies like ordinary batteries to more exotic technology like molten salt storage for energy generated by solar panels.
javagram 7y ago
Chernobyl exploded and caught on fire and burned, leading radioactive smoke to spread hundreds of miles. Isn’t this similar to the scenario you propose? We’ve already seen what happens (42 immediate casualties, 1000s of cancer cases). But Europe is still a livable continent, it didn’t turn into the scene of a Fallout video game or whatever. In comparison, the 2011 Tsunami in Japan killed 15,000, yet people are still allowed to live near the ocean...
- crdoconnor 7y ago
  The point is that Chernobyl could have turned Ukraine into an unlivable country. Badly although it was managed, it could have been even worse.
  - javagram 7y ago
    Could Chernobyl have turned Ukraine into an unlivable country though? I’m not sure of the science behind that claim. Presumably the larger the radioactivity was dispersed, the weaker it would be. Obviously it was not a good thing, and could have been even worse, but I’d be curious to see a scientific explanation of whether a civilian reactor accident or meteor strike could make half a continent unlivable.
claudeganon 7y ago
I got downvoted in another thread for saying this, but I’ve yet to see any nuclear advocate explain how these systems will fair in a war or state collapse. We’re less than a hundred years out from when wide swathes of Europe were reduced to rubble, but expected to believe that current political formations are going to be stable as far into the future as nuclear materials need to managed. It may be the case that nuclear energy is required to stave off climate disaster, but given the political instability that’s also likely to engender, I’d like to see anyone speak to this with anything like a historical perspective.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > expected to believe that current political formations are going to be stable as far into the future as nuclear materials need to managed With proper management (reprocessing), we're talking a hundred years or so. That seems like a reasonable time frame to me.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  Do not complain about being downvoted. It’s boring, it often leads to further downvoting for whining and it shows a complete lack of perspective to be complaining about meaningless message board points. As for how nuclear power will fare in the event of war or state collapse, really badly, like everything else. Any state capable of running a nuclear reactor built by someone else, never mind building their own, has the capacity for modern industrial warfare, which is insanely expensive in lives and capital. A doubling or trebling of cancer rates due to a Chernobyl level disaster would be background noise compared to war. I wouldn’t worry excessively about state collapse. There’s a great deal of ruin in a nation. If North Korea can keep going and there hasn’t been an instance of non-war induced state collapse in Europe since Rome’s withdrawal from Britain I wouldn’t worry. Think of Libya, Yugoslavia or Somalia. The first fell to outside aggression, the second was a civil war massively prolonged by outside interference and the third had state capacity too low to be relevant in this context.
pdonis 7y ago
> If we have 100,000 reactors spread across the world, what’s the likelihood that over 100 years one of them, I don’t know, gets hit by a meteor and contaminates half a continent? Zero. There simply isn't enough radioactive material in a reactor to contaminate half a continent, even if it were dispersed that widely by an extraordinary event like a meteorite strike. And the smaller you make the reactor, the less radioactive material there is inside it. As has already been remarked, Chernobyl is a good benchmark for a worst case scenario of a catastrophic event with a reactor dispersing radioactive material over a wide area. And even counting Chernobyl (and Fukushima), the number of deaths caused by nuclear power per unit of energy generated is orders of magnitude smaller than the corresponding number for any other energy source. So I simply don't see black swan events as a valid concern that should stop the widespread deployment of nuclear power, particularly given the advantages to be gained.

xupybd 7y ago

But are those one or two catastrophies worse than the alternative. We know coal kills thousands each year and harms the planet. Would the net impact of Nuclear be better than running the current course. Ideally we'd use renewables but there are limits to the current tech that need to be solved before we can go 100%.

Areading314 7y ago
You can't heat your house in winter with wind + solar. For a carbon-free world, you need nuclear, period.
- xupybd 7y ago
  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261919317660 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626191... In this paper the authors model renewables in Artic isolated settlements. It's only a model but looks promising.
- crdoconnor 7y ago
  Why not? Wind is a ~50% cheaper source of energy per kWh than nuclear. Edit : apparently the answer to this question is "downvote" :)
  - Recurecur 7y ago
    > Why not? Wind is a ~50% cheaper source of energy per kWh than nuclear. That's an illusory number. Wind requires backup power, or lots of storage. Wind turbines have a ~20 year lifespan, compared with ~60 years for coal/nuclear plants. Once the safety and economies of mass-produced Gen IV SMRs are accounted for, nuclear is MUCH cheaper than wind. What would be really bad would be the first time thousands of people die when the wind/solar powered grid goes down during a cold snap.
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  "You can't heat your house in winter with wind + solar" I know someone who actually did heat their home through some pretty brutal winters using just solar heat.. and a pretty simple setup he jury-rigged himself, at that. So it can be done. There are also energy storage technologies like ordinary batteries to more exotic technology like molten salt storage for energy generated by solar panels.

javagram 7y ago

Chernobyl exploded and caught on fire and burned, leading radioactive smoke to spread hundreds of miles. Isn’t this similar to the scenario you propose? We’ve already seen what happens (42 immediate casualties, 1000s of cancer cases). But Europe is still a livable continent, it didn’t turn into the scene of a Fallout video game or whatever. In comparison, the 2011 Tsunami in Japan killed 15,000, yet people are still allowed to live near the ocean...

crdoconnor 7y ago
The point is that Chernobyl could have turned Ukraine into an unlivable country. Badly although it was managed, it could have been even worse.
- javagram 7y ago
  Could Chernobyl have turned Ukraine into an unlivable country though? I’m not sure of the science behind that claim. Presumably the larger the radioactivity was dispersed, the weaker it would be. Obviously it was not a good thing, and could have been even worse, but I’d be curious to see a scientific explanation of whether a civilian reactor accident or meteor strike could make half a continent unlivable.

claudeganon 7y ago

I got downvoted in another thread for saying this, but I’ve yet to see any nuclear advocate explain how these systems will fair in a war or state collapse. We’re less than a hundred years out from when wide swathes of Europe were reduced to rubble, but expected to believe that current political formations are going to be stable as far into the future as nuclear materials need to managed. It may be the case that nuclear energy is required to stave off climate disaster, but given the political instability that’s also likely to engender, I’d like to see anyone speak to this with anything like a historical perspective.

pdonis 7y ago
> expected to believe that current political formations are going to be stable as far into the future as nuclear materials need to managed With proper management (reprocessing), we're talking a hundred years or so. That seems like a reasonable time frame to me.
barry-cotter 7y ago
Do not complain about being downvoted. It’s boring, it often leads to further downvoting for whining and it shows a complete lack of perspective to be complaining about meaningless message board points. As for how nuclear power will fare in the event of war or state collapse, really badly, like everything else. Any state capable of running a nuclear reactor built by someone else, never mind building their own, has the capacity for modern industrial warfare, which is insanely expensive in lives and capital. A doubling or trebling of cancer rates due to a Chernobyl level disaster would be background noise compared to war. I wouldn’t worry excessively about state collapse. There’s a great deal of ruin in a nation. If North Korea can keep going and there hasn’t been an instance of non-war induced state collapse in Europe since Rome’s withdrawal from Britain I wouldn’t worry. Think of Libya, Yugoslavia or Somalia. The first fell to outside aggression, the second was a civil war massively prolonged by outside interference and the third had state capacity too low to be relevant in this context.

pdonis 7y ago

> If we have 100,000 reactors spread across the world, what’s the likelihood that over 100 years one of them, I don’t know, gets hit by a meteor and contaminates half a continent? Zero. There simply isn't enough radioactive material in a reactor to contaminate half a continent, even if it were dispersed that widely by an extraordinary event like a meteorite strike. And the smaller you make the reactor, the less radioactive material there is inside it. As has already been remarked, Chernobyl is a good benchmark for a worst case scenario of a catastrophic event with a reactor dispersing radioactive material over a wide area. And even counting Chernobyl (and Fukushima), the number of deaths caused by nuclear power per unit of energy generated is orders of magnitude smaller than the corresponding number for any other energy source. So I simply don't see black swan events as a valid concern that should stop the widespread deployment of nuclear power, particularly given the advantages to be gained.