10 ms·

I used to be pro-nuclear, but here in South Africa, we can't even keep our coal plants running - nevermind nuclear. Last week a 930MW nuclear turbine at Koeberg

by pgt 7y ago

I used to be pro-nuclear, but here in South Africa, we can't even keep our coal plants running - nevermind nuclear. Last week a 930MW nuclear turbine at Koeberg went down because the cooling pump filters had not been cleaned in years and was filled with fish and jellyfish. Small-scale, independent solar producers and perhaps geothermal or CSP (molten salt) seem to be the only strategies that can work. There will always be corruption, war and fraud. To be pro-nuclear, you have to guarantee political stability for 100+ years, and I don't think many places could guarantee that.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
That how I view it too. Especially with the idea of smaller and more reactors somebody somewhere somewhen will screw up big time.
toomuchtodo 7y ago
> There will always be corruption, war and fraud. To be pro-nuclear, you have to guarantee political stability for 100+ years, and I don't think many places could guarantee that. Indeed. This is the crux of it. Nuclear run by the US military? Very safe. Nuclear (as a power source, not talking munitions) run by the rest of the world as a commercial operation? Fraught with peril. I'm not anti-nuclear; I'm anti-humans-running-nuclear-for-profit. It's time to move to renewables, batteries, and transmission networks, full steam ahead. https://pvbuzz.com/renewables-capacity-overwhelms-coal-gas-oil/ https://pvbuzz.com/renewables-capacity-overwhelms-coal-gas-o... (US: Over the next three years, renewables will add nearly 50,000-MW of new capacity and be more than a quarter of total, while gas, coal, oil, and nuclear will drop by 4,200-MW) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/12/wind-and-solar-plants-will-soon-be-cheaper-than-coal-in-all-big-markets-around-world-analysis-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/12/wind-and... (Wind and solar plants will soon be cheaper than coal in all big markets around world, analysis finds)
- WalterBright 7y ago
  > I'm anti-humans-running-nuclear-for-profit. Chernobyl wasn't run for profit.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    Sure it was. Why would the soviets have build it if not for profit?
    - manfredo 7y ago
      To produce electricity as part of a state-planned economy. It turns out governments are just as capable of cutting corners and making poor decisions like having a positive void coefficient, combined control/catalyst rods, and a lack of secondary containment.
      - WalterBright 7y ago
        Governments are more capable of making poor decisions because of lack of liability and no financial consequences to the decision makers.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- mcguire 7y ago
  "Nuclear run by the US military? Very safe." Are you sure? Would we know?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - bumby 7y ago
    It's not immediately clear what they were referring to. Maybe they're referring to the nuclear powered warship record? "they have amassed over 5700 reactor-years of safe operation."[1] [1]https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/security/fact0604.pdf https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/security/fact0604... Edit: On second thought, there seems to be more than I was expecting, especially early in the atomic era: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accid...
  - Godel_unicode 7y ago
    Given that we have heard about safety issues from the nuclear establishment in the US, and we have heard about all kinds of ship issues from the Navy, I feel confident that if there were problems we would have heard about them. False negatives are what they are, but the preponderance of the evidence is on the side of safety. Can we say the same for fossil fuels? Is it really worth staying on them because of some hypothetical beyond-top-secret problems that probably don't exist?
- pgt 7y ago
  I have far more faith in nuclear run for-profit than nuclear run for-loss, as our South African state-owned enterprises have demonstrated.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - pinkfoot 7y ago
    Ah come on, that's not fair. The program is run for the profit of your ruling party. Elections and harems are expensive.
- morpheuskafka 7y ago
  So you trust the military (which wouldn't do this directly anyway, they would just contract to a for-profit company), an institute which is purpose-built to kill other humans on the orders of the state, over a private company that merely seeks to turn a profit? Militarism has always been about profit and greed, more so than any company. And unlike companies, they are basically above the law.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Yes. US Navy nuclear engineers are military service members, not contractors, and are therefore part of the chain of command. There are consequences for failing to follow protocol. https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/NNPTC/ https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/NNPTC/
    - bumby 7y ago
      I see you've never personally experienced the US military... Kidding aside, while many service members do uphold their oath honorably, there's plenty of non-compliance and outright malfeasance without accountability. And to the grandparent, the military does run reactors outside of ships (but typically for research as far as I know)
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - pdonis 7y ago
        > I see you've never personally experienced the US military I see you haven't bothered to actually look at the record. The U.S. Navy has decades of operating many nuclear reactors on ships and submarines with no incidents. > there's plenty of non-compliance and outright malfeasance without accountability Not in the U.S. Navy's nuclear program. Even what would be considered minor infractions in other parts of the military are grounds for immediate dismissal. I saw that happen once while I was in the Navy and stationed at a shipyard. A minor administrative irregularity got the reactor officer of a ship fired; he was off the ship the same day and never came back.
- opo 7y ago
  Few people who support nuclear power are against renewables, they are against fossil fuels. Coal mining is dangerous/destructive, burning coal is poisoning the oceans and has killed many, many people. For example, even with the advanced air pollution controls on coal plants in Europe, an estimate is that over 20,000 deaths are caused per year due to burning coal. I am not sure how many of these deaths Germany is exporting every year to countries downwind, but it isn't zero. https://news.mongabay.com/2013/06/burning-coal-responsible-for-over-20000-deaths-a-year-in-europe/ https://news.mongabay.com/2013/06/burning-coal-responsible-f... A NASA estimate is that the use of nuclear power has saved approximately 1.8 million lives in the years 1971-2009. https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/kharecha_02/ https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/kharecha_02/ Long term, coal usage is also obviously a big driver of climate change. What many don't realize is that natural gas, it might be as bad for climate change as coal due to methane releases during the extraction and transportation of n History will not look kindly on those who want to shut down nuclear power and keep coal and natural gas. Unfortunately trying to rely only on intermittent power sources has huge storage requirements due to weather along with daily/seasonal variation. If grid energy storage was a simple problem it would have been done decades ago. For example, one estimate is that for Germany to rely on solar and wind would require about 6,000 pumped storage plants which is 183 times their current capacity: >...Based on German hourly feed-in and consumption data for electric power, this paper studies the storage and buffering needs resulting from the volatility of wind and solar energy. It shows that joint buffers for wind and solar energy require less storage capacity than would be necessary to buffer wind or solar energy alone. The storage requirement of over 6,000 pumped storage plants, which is 183 times Germany’s current capacity, would nevertheless be huge. https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/144985/1/cesifo1_wp5950.pdf https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/144985/1/cesifo1_wp5...
- 8bitsrule 7y ago
  Exactly. For equal investment dollars and resulting real generating capacity, compare the time each will take to reach that goal, as against the very real climate threat. Real-world investors made their decision long ago. Even neglecting the never-resolved waste problem, it's a no-brainer. Until the Sun quits, renewables are safe, clean, and unlikely to create any more disasters.
BelleOfTheBall 7y ago
They might be better solutions but the coal industry and the general populace are pushing against them for now. While the people's opinions will likely change, we shouldn't expect any positive shifts from the coal moguls. Considering the fact that they're lobbying hard, is there that much we can do other than educating friends and family?
oconnor663 7y ago
Question from a layman: What about "passively safe" reactor designs? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety
- altcognito 7y ago
  you still have disposal issues
  - PaulHoule 7y ago
    where do you dispose of the Co2 from fossil fuels?
  - nitrogen 7y ago
    The response to this is always "where are we disposing the fossil fuel waste?"
    - monocasa 7y ago
      For one example: 36 deaths where the court system assigned fault, probably much more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly_ash_slurry_spill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly...
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      (and the answer is, in part, "into the air, water, etc., where it kills many, many people each year") https://qz.com/568450/fossil-fuels-kill-more-people-every-year-than-wars-murders-and-traffic-accidents-combined/ https://qz.com/568450/fossil-fuels-kill-more-people-every-ye...
    - gowld 7y ago
      Relevant user name.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - 7y ago
yongjik 7y ago
Actually, when the alternative is fossil fuels (and it frequently is), you only have to understand that, even if your nuclear reactor goes kaboom, it will still kill less people than your fossil fuel plant that does not blow up. And please don't give me "we should all use less energy." Even if we should all use less energy, it's still better to generate this less energy from nuclear, as long as we're using fossil fuel now.
- keiferski 7y ago
  This isn't really the criticism that the OP is making. Coal may kill more people, but it doesn't irradiate the surrounding area for hundreds of years if something goes wrong. Personally, I agree that nuclear is probably not anti-fragile enough to be a widespread solution. Political instability is the norm, not the rarity, throughout history.
  - yongjik 7y ago
    People are advised not to eat too much tuna, because coal polluted the entire ocean with mercury. The worst nuclear disasters pale in comparison to what we did with fossil fuels.
    - bobthepanda 7y ago
      The problem with this kind of comparison is that nuclear can cause one-time incidents resulting in massive social disruption and economic issues for a period of time. COVID-19 shows that, as a society, the world in general is not prepared for stuff like this; even the initial Chinese quarantines started causing supply chain issues that reverberated around the world. It is much easier to ask people to reduce tuna consumption, than to relocate 100,000+ people, as happened in Fukushima.
  - ouid 7y ago
    Eh, Chernobyl is not that bad. It's basically a wildlife refuge now.
  - ohyes 7y ago
throw7337 7y ago
Nuclear does usually fine under corruption, war and fraud. Largest nuclear power plant in Europe is in Ukraine, just next to warzone. But genociding your engineers is probably not best idea.

by pgt 7y ago

Ididntdothis 7y ago

That how I view it too. Especially with the idea of smaller and more reactors somebody somewhere somewhen will screw up big time.

toomuchtodo 7y ago

> There will always be corruption, war and fraud. To be pro-nuclear, you have to guarantee political stability for 100+ years, and I don't think many places could guarantee that. Indeed. This is the crux of it. Nuclear run by the US military? Very safe. Nuclear (as a power source, not talking munitions) run by the rest of the world as a commercial operation? Fraught with peril. I'm not anti-nuclear; I'm anti-humans-running-nuclear-for-profit. It's time to move to renewables, batteries, and transmission networks, full steam ahead. https://pvbuzz.com/renewables-capacity-overwhelms-coal-gas-oil/ https://pvbuzz.com/renewables-capacity-overwhelms-coal-gas-o... (US: Over the next three years, renewables will add nearly 50,000-MW of new capacity and be more than a quarter of total, while gas, coal, oil, and nuclear will drop by 4,200-MW) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/12/wind-and-solar-plants-will-soon-be-cheaper-than-coal-in-all-big-markets-around-world-analysis-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/12/wind-and... (Wind and solar plants will soon be cheaper than coal in all big markets around world, analysis finds)

WalterBright 7y ago
> I'm anti-humans-running-nuclear-for-profit. Chernobyl wasn't run for profit.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  Sure it was. Why would the soviets have build it if not for profit?
  - manfredo 7y ago
    To produce electricity as part of a state-planned economy. It turns out governments are just as capable of cutting corners and making poor decisions like having a positive void coefficient, combined control/catalyst rods, and a lack of secondary containment.
    - WalterBright 7y ago
      Governments are more capable of making poor decisions because of lack of liability and no financial consequences to the decision makers.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
mcguire 7y ago
"Nuclear run by the US military? Very safe." Are you sure? Would we know?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- bumby 7y ago
  It's not immediately clear what they were referring to. Maybe they're referring to the nuclear powered warship record? "they have amassed over 5700 reactor-years of safe operation."[1] [1]https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/security/fact0604.pdf https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/security/fact0604... Edit: On second thought, there seems to be more than I was expecting, especially early in the atomic era: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accid...
- Godel_unicode 7y ago
  Given that we have heard about safety issues from the nuclear establishment in the US, and we have heard about all kinds of ship issues from the Navy, I feel confident that if there were problems we would have heard about them. False negatives are what they are, but the preponderance of the evidence is on the side of safety. Can we say the same for fossil fuels? Is it really worth staying on them because of some hypothetical beyond-top-secret problems that probably don't exist?
pgt 7y ago
I have far more faith in nuclear run for-profit than nuclear run for-loss, as our South African state-owned enterprises have demonstrated.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- pinkfoot 7y ago
  Ah come on, that's not fair. The program is run for the profit of your ruling party. Elections and harems are expensive.
morpheuskafka 7y ago
So you trust the military (which wouldn't do this directly anyway, they would just contract to a for-profit company), an institute which is purpose-built to kill other humans on the orders of the state, over a private company that merely seeks to turn a profit? Militarism has always been about profit and greed, more so than any company. And unlike companies, they are basically above the law.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Yes. US Navy nuclear engineers are military service members, not contractors, and are therefore part of the chain of command. There are consequences for failing to follow protocol. https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/NNPTC/ https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/NNPTC/
  - bumby 7y ago
    I see you've never personally experienced the US military... Kidding aside, while many service members do uphold their oath honorably, there's plenty of non-compliance and outright malfeasance without accountability. And to the grandparent, the military does run reactors outside of ships (but typically for research as far as I know)
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - pdonis 7y ago
      > I see you've never personally experienced the US military I see you haven't bothered to actually look at the record. The U.S. Navy has decades of operating many nuclear reactors on ships and submarines with no incidents. > there's plenty of non-compliance and outright malfeasance without accountability Not in the U.S. Navy's nuclear program. Even what would be considered minor infractions in other parts of the military are grounds for immediate dismissal. I saw that happen once while I was in the Navy and stationed at a shipyard. A minor administrative irregularity got the reactor officer of a ship fired; he was off the ship the same day and never came back.
opo 7y ago
Few people who support nuclear power are against renewables, they are against fossil fuels. Coal mining is dangerous/destructive, burning coal is poisoning the oceans and has killed many, many people. For example, even with the advanced air pollution controls on coal plants in Europe, an estimate is that over 20,000 deaths are caused per year due to burning coal. I am not sure how many of these deaths Germany is exporting every year to countries downwind, but it isn't zero. https://news.mongabay.com/2013/06/burning-coal-responsible-for-over-20000-deaths-a-year-in-europe/ https://news.mongabay.com/2013/06/burning-coal-responsible-f... A NASA estimate is that the use of nuclear power has saved approximately 1.8 million lives in the years 1971-2009. https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/kharecha_02/ https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/kharecha_02/ Long term, coal usage is also obviously a big driver of climate change. What many don't realize is that natural gas, it might be as bad for climate change as coal due to methane releases during the extraction and transportation of n History will not look kindly on those who want to shut down nuclear power and keep coal and natural gas. Unfortunately trying to rely only on intermittent power sources has huge storage requirements due to weather along with daily/seasonal variation. If grid energy storage was a simple problem it would have been done decades ago. For example, one estimate is that for Germany to rely on solar and wind would require about 6,000 pumped storage plants which is 183 times their current capacity: >...Based on German hourly feed-in and consumption data for electric power, this paper studies the storage and buffering needs resulting from the volatility of wind and solar energy. It shows that joint buffers for wind and solar energy require less storage capacity than would be necessary to buffer wind or solar energy alone. The storage requirement of over 6,000 pumped storage plants, which is 183 times Germany’s current capacity, would nevertheless be huge. https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/144985/1/cesifo1_wp5950.pdf https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/144985/1/cesifo1_wp5...
8bitsrule 7y ago
Exactly. For equal investment dollars and resulting real generating capacity, compare the time each will take to reach that goal, as against the very real climate threat. Real-world investors made their decision long ago. Even neglecting the never-resolved waste problem, it's a no-brainer. Until the Sun quits, renewables are safe, clean, and unlikely to create any more disasters.

BelleOfTheBall 7y ago

They might be better solutions but the coal industry and the general populace are pushing against them for now. While the people's opinions will likely change, we shouldn't expect any positive shifts from the coal moguls. Considering the fact that they're lobbying hard, is there that much we can do other than educating friends and family?

oconnor663 7y ago

Question from a layman: What about "passively safe" reactor designs? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety

altcognito 7y ago
you still have disposal issues
- PaulHoule 7y ago
  where do you dispose of the Co2 from fossil fuels?
- nitrogen 7y ago
  The response to this is always "where are we disposing the fossil fuel waste?"
  - monocasa 7y ago
    For one example: 36 deaths where the court system assigned fault, probably much more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly_ash_slurry_spill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly...
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    (and the answer is, in part, "into the air, water, etc., where it kills many, many people each year") https://qz.com/568450/fossil-fuels-kill-more-people-every-year-than-wars-murders-and-traffic-accidents-combined/ https://qz.com/568450/fossil-fuels-kill-more-people-every-ye...
  - gowld 7y ago
    Relevant user name.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- 7y ago

yongjik 7y ago

Actually, when the alternative is fossil fuels (and it frequently is), you only have to understand that, even if your nuclear reactor goes kaboom, it will still kill less people than your fossil fuel plant that does not blow up. And please don't give me "we should all use less energy." Even if we should all use less energy, it's still better to generate this less energy from nuclear, as long as we're using fossil fuel now.

keiferski 7y ago
This isn't really the criticism that the OP is making. Coal may kill more people, but it doesn't irradiate the surrounding area for hundreds of years if something goes wrong. Personally, I agree that nuclear is probably not anti-fragile enough to be a widespread solution. Political instability is the norm, not the rarity, throughout history.
- yongjik 7y ago
  People are advised not to eat too much tuna, because coal polluted the entire ocean with mercury. The worst nuclear disasters pale in comparison to what we did with fossil fuels.
  - bobthepanda 7y ago
    The problem with this kind of comparison is that nuclear can cause one-time incidents resulting in massive social disruption and economic issues for a period of time. COVID-19 shows that, as a society, the world in general is not prepared for stuff like this; even the initial Chinese quarantines started causing supply chain issues that reverberated around the world. It is much easier to ask people to reduce tuna consumption, than to relocate 100,000+ people, as happened in Fukushima.
- ouid 7y ago
  Eh, Chernobyl is not that bad. It's basically a wildlife refuge now.
- ohyes 7y ago

throw7337 7y ago

Nuclear does usually fine under corruption, war and fraud. Largest nuclear power plant in Europe is in Ukraine, just next to warzone. But genociding your engineers is probably not best idea.