5 ms·

I was a pretty solid supporter of nuclear power, but if Japan can't make it safe, I don't believe anyone can.

rosser 16y ago
Fukushima Daiichi #1 is a couple weeks shy of 40 years old (from first criticality, 26 March 1971) at this point. There are a number of prototype, and production, reactor designs that are in principle "meltdown"-proof. That a reactor that old didn't survive one of the most massive earthquakes ever recorded is no basis for abandoning nuclear power. Unfortunately, that's all we're going to hear from some corners of the nuclear debate, regardless of the facts.
- maigret 16y ago
  German politicians voted runtime extensions for many nuclear plants. Many plants in the world are just old, because regularly rebuilding plants would make real green energies much more interesting. I think such a disaster on the environment justifies stopping using nuclear energy, even if it means more constraints on energy price and availability. If I look at the German nuclear energy discussion, there is a lot of greed involved. That is not something we can afford.
  - anigbrowl 16y ago
    Germany isn't known for having earthquakes. Please don't be alarmist, there will be time to debate the policy issues later.
    - bitsoffreedom 16y ago
      A situation like the one in Fukushima can occur whenever the power supply to a nuclear power plant is cut off. A similar situation occured in Sweden's Forsmark plant in 2006: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant
  - JanezStupar 16y ago
    You don't know what you're talking about. At this point of history we NEED power and there are only two power sources with high enough availability and low enough cost. It's either thermo plants or nuclear plants. Everything else wont cut it. And turning off the lights won't do a shit to alleviate possible lack of energy if we stop using nuclear. Your PC ain't consuming that much power, we need power for industry. So if nuclear power was to be turned off immediately we'd have some shit on our hands. People without food, work,... Don't talk silly.
    - maigret 16y ago
      I may have reacted too emotionally, but one of the point am I questioning is whether keeping old nuclear reactors is safe (I should probably have given more background on the German discussion). We may come to the conclusion that replacing them by new reactors could improve the overall safety. Of course that is going to cost money, and then we might find out that we are building us a debt that is not paying in the long term. The fact is that some countries use nuclear power a lot, some other almost not, and that nuclear power only produces a minor part of the world electricity and energy. Probably a part we could gain back by investing in efficiency.
      - JanezStupar 16y ago
        You are deceiving... Where did your get your information that nuclear power is "minor part" of electric energy production? See this table: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/nshare.html http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/nshare.html If you see this is practically a list of major industrialized countries. Two of the biggest (China and India) countries that will grow their energy needs tremendously are going to rely on nuclear power massively in the future. EDIT: Darn, I apologize :).
        maigret 16y ago
        On the same site :D "The IAEA projections would give nuclear power a 13.5 to 14.6% share in electricity production in 2020, and 12.6 to 15.9% in 2030." http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf17.html http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf17.html BTW there is currently around as much renewable energy than nuclear worldwide.
geuis 16y ago
This is kind of like saying, "I really believe that commercial airlines are the safest way to travel, but if they can't keep them from crashing sometimes I won't ever fly again." I know, its not an exact paraphrasing but the intent it still there. For one thing, the Japanese are not the super awesome technology supergiants that the common wisdom from the 1980's in the US makes them out to be. Europe, Japan, South Korea, and the U.S. are all technologically equivalent. Its more of a matter of how much certain tech is spread out. When it comes to stuff like nuclear plants, we're all basically the same. Gotta give 'em a break. Japan, as far as I know, has not had many accidents. We've had a number of them including Three Mile. When something the size of a continental plate snaps with enough power to shift the speed of the planet and a country's position on the globe by over 10 feet, there's not a lot of blame that can be put if it happens near a nuclear reactor.
- waterlesscloud 16y ago
  I'm not criticizing Japan.
- gnosis 16y ago
  This is kind of like saying, "I really believe that commercial airlines are the safest way to travel..." Except nuclear power is not the safest form of energy. Not by a long shot. What's the worst that could happen if an earthquake or a terrorist strike devastated a solar array or a wind farm? Apart from cutting off the power supply, nothing much. Compare that to a meltdown at a nuclear power plant. Or the nuclear proliferation risk caused by the theft of fissile material. Not to mention the hazards posed by nuclear waste.
maigret 16y ago
This is actually a proof that nuclear energy is not green, not safe, and should not be used any more. Nuclear plants can't resist direct airliner impact or big earthquakes or anything that the engineer didn't think about.
- geuis 16y ago
  Merde, HN needs a redesign. I didn't mean to upvote this comment, sorry. Nuclear energy is like commercial airlines. Its a very safe kind of power, but sometimes there are accidents. Its unavoidable. More to your point, saying that a 747 hitting a cooling tower is a reason to abandon nuclear power is asinine. I the entire 100+ years of human flight, there have been exactly TWO instances of commercial planes hitting large human structures, and they both happened within a few minutes of each other in New York. To your other point, OF COURSE ENGINEERS THOUGHT ABOUT EARTHQUAKES. They're freaking NUCLEAR PLANTS. They don't build these things on fucking fault lines and then say "oops". They aren't franchise McDonald's that take 3 weeks to build and then ask if you want fries with your uranium. Any plant takes years, if not a decade in some cases, of zoning and study before they move a bull dozer onto a site. This earthquake SHIFTED THE ENTIRE PLANET. Its quite within the realm of being ok that a 40+ year old nuclear plant isn't handling being shaken by that kind of force very well.
  - catshirt 16y ago
    the sum of my knowledge on nuclear energy and human flight is nearly nothing, so forgive me if i'm wrong... but comparatively, isn't the potential aftermath of a nuclear meltdown a bit more concerning than a plane crashing?
    - rosser 16y ago
      Planes crash far more often than reactors "melt down", so -- and I'm admittedly guessing here -- it's probably a wash, at least in terms of property damage. In terms of human cost (lives lost, injury, &c), plane crashes are far, far worse. All but the most egregious damage from radiation can be mitigated, if not prevented outright. If you're on a plane that's going down, or in the thing it's going to hit when it does, there's precisely fuck-all you can do about it.
DennisP 16y ago
Pollution from coal is estimated to kill 24,000 people every year in the U.S. alone. Nuclear is way safer than that, and probably the only power source that can replace coal anytime soon.

Fukushima Daiichi #1 is a couple weeks shy of 40 years old (from first criticality, 26 March 1971) at this point. There are a number of prototype, and production, reactor designs that are in principle "meltdown"-proof. That a reactor that old didn't survive one of the most massive earthquakes ever recorded is no basis for abandoning nuclear power. Unfortunately, that's all we're going to hear from some corners of the nuclear debate, regardless of the facts.

maigret 16y ago
German politicians voted runtime extensions for many nuclear plants. Many plants in the world are just old, because regularly rebuilding plants would make real green energies much more interesting. I think such a disaster on the environment justifies stopping using nuclear energy, even if it means more constraints on energy price and availability. If I look at the German nuclear energy discussion, there is a lot of greed involved. That is not something we can afford.
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  Germany isn't known for having earthquakes. Please don't be alarmist, there will be time to debate the policy issues later.
  - bitsoffreedom 16y ago
    A situation like the one in Fukushima can occur whenever the power supply to a nuclear power plant is cut off. A similar situation occured in Sweden's Forsmark plant in 2006: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant
- JanezStupar 16y ago
  You don't know what you're talking about. At this point of history we NEED power and there are only two power sources with high enough availability and low enough cost. It's either thermo plants or nuclear plants. Everything else wont cut it. And turning off the lights won't do a shit to alleviate possible lack of energy if we stop using nuclear. Your PC ain't consuming that much power, we need power for industry. So if nuclear power was to be turned off immediately we'd have some shit on our hands. People without food, work,... Don't talk silly.
  - maigret 16y ago
    I may have reacted too emotionally, but one of the point am I questioning is whether keeping old nuclear reactors is safe (I should probably have given more background on the German discussion). We may come to the conclusion that replacing them by new reactors could improve the overall safety. Of course that is going to cost money, and then we might find out that we are building us a debt that is not paying in the long term. The fact is that some countries use nuclear power a lot, some other almost not, and that nuclear power only produces a minor part of the world electricity and energy. Probably a part we could gain back by investing in efficiency.
    - JanezStupar 16y ago
      You are deceiving... Where did your get your information that nuclear power is "minor part" of electric energy production? See this table: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/nshare.html http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/nshare.html If you see this is practically a list of major industrialized countries. Two of the biggest (China and India) countries that will grow their energy needs tremendously are going to rely on nuclear power massively in the future. EDIT: Darn, I apologize :).
      - maigret 16y ago
        On the same site :D "The IAEA projections would give nuclear power a 13.5 to 14.6% share in electricity production in 2020, and 12.6 to 15.9% in 2030." http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf17.html http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf17.html BTW there is currently around as much renewable energy than nuclear worldwide.

geuis 16y ago

This is kind of like saying, "I really believe that commercial airlines are the safest way to travel, but if they can't keep them from crashing sometimes I won't ever fly again." I know, its not an exact paraphrasing but the intent it still there. For one thing, the Japanese are not the super awesome technology supergiants that the common wisdom from the 1980's in the US makes them out to be. Europe, Japan, South Korea, and the U.S. are all technologically equivalent. Its more of a matter of how much certain tech is spread out. When it comes to stuff like nuclear plants, we're all basically the same. Gotta give 'em a break. Japan, as far as I know, has not had many accidents. We've had a number of them including Three Mile. When something the size of a continental plate snaps with enough power to shift the speed of the planet and a country's position on the globe by over 10 feet, there's not a lot of blame that can be put if it happens near a nuclear reactor.

waterlesscloud 16y ago
I'm not criticizing Japan.
gnosis 16y ago
This is kind of like saying, "I really believe that commercial airlines are the safest way to travel..." Except nuclear power is not the safest form of energy. Not by a long shot. What's the worst that could happen if an earthquake or a terrorist strike devastated a solar array or a wind farm? Apart from cutting off the power supply, nothing much. Compare that to a meltdown at a nuclear power plant. Or the nuclear proliferation risk caused by the theft of fissile material. Not to mention the hazards posed by nuclear waste.

maigret 16y ago

This is actually a proof that nuclear energy is not green, not safe, and should not be used any more. Nuclear plants can't resist direct airliner impact or big earthquakes or anything that the engineer didn't think about.

geuis 16y ago
Merde, HN needs a redesign. I didn't mean to upvote this comment, sorry. Nuclear energy is like commercial airlines. Its a very safe kind of power, but sometimes there are accidents. Its unavoidable. More to your point, saying that a 747 hitting a cooling tower is a reason to abandon nuclear power is asinine. I the entire 100+ years of human flight, there have been exactly TWO instances of commercial planes hitting large human structures, and they both happened within a few minutes of each other in New York. To your other point, OF COURSE ENGINEERS THOUGHT ABOUT EARTHQUAKES. They're freaking NUCLEAR PLANTS. They don't build these things on fucking fault lines and then say "oops". They aren't franchise McDonald's that take 3 weeks to build and then ask if you want fries with your uranium. Any plant takes years, if not a decade in some cases, of zoning and study before they move a bull dozer onto a site. This earthquake SHIFTED THE ENTIRE PLANET. Its quite within the realm of being ok that a 40+ year old nuclear plant isn't handling being shaken by that kind of force very well.
- catshirt 16y ago
  the sum of my knowledge on nuclear energy and human flight is nearly nothing, so forgive me if i'm wrong... but comparatively, isn't the potential aftermath of a nuclear meltdown a bit more concerning than a plane crashing?
  - rosser 16y ago
    Planes crash far more often than reactors "melt down", so -- and I'm admittedly guessing here -- it's probably a wash, at least in terms of property damage. In terms of human cost (lives lost, injury, &c), plane crashes are far, far worse. All but the most egregious damage from radiation can be mitigated, if not prevented outright. If you're on a plane that's going down, or in the thing it's going to hit when it does, there's precisely fuck-all you can do about it.

DennisP 16y ago

Pollution from coal is estimated to kill 24,000 people every year in the U.S. alone. Nuclear is way safer than that, and probably the only power source that can replace coal anytime soon.