3 ms·

> 3 mile island, fukushima, and chernobyl could likely all have been prevented. all include an exclusion zone of some shape or size. none have experienced meani

by est31 6y ago

> 3 mile island, fukushima, and chernobyl could likely all have been prevented. all include an exclusion zone of some shape or size. none have experienced meaningful amounts of cleanup. That's just wrong. Fukushima has been and still is getting a major cleanup operation. They removed the top layers of soil in many places. For chernobyl it's not economic because the Ukraine is very sparsely populated.

redis_mlc 6y ago
The HN nuclear apologists are disgusting. Japan will end up spending in the area of $1 Trillion dollars on Fukushima "cleanup" - where "cleanup" means moving dirt from one pile to another forever. 250,000 residents were displaced, many living in school gyms until they died.
aeternum 6y ago
While I like nuclear tech, we do need to acknowledge the cost and time-to-build problem. Reactors take so long to build that by the time they are operational, the tech is out-dated. While newer reactors should make a meltdown almost impossible, insuring against it is still quite expensive. This lead to high operational costs. The biggest enemy of nuclear is economics.
- acidburnNSA 6y ago
  There are some pretty wild solutions to this out there, like building large floating power plants in shipyards. Assembly line style. This was highly developed by a joint venture between Newport news and Westinghouse in the 1970s. Also, an important true fact is nuclear economics today are on par with system economics of all other hypothesized low carbon energy systems. Though wind and solar generator prices will fall, grid integration and storage will add $40/MWh. Nuclear is already right where other options will end up. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006
  - philipkglass 6y ago
    The cost assumptions in that report don't extend high enough for nuclear. The "mid-range" cost for nuclear is given as $4700/kW. The "conservative" cost for nuclear is $7000/kW. But Flamanville 3 is going to finish at over $8800/kW even if there are no further delays or overruns. Hinkley Point C is also over $8800/kW. Vogtle 3 and 4, if they complete without any further budget overruns, are going to be over $11000/kW. Nuclear projects have such terrible track records on cost and schedule that they are going to be a last resort in any foreseeable cost-conscious decarbonization plan for the US. Which is too bad, because they really do crank out clean energy after they are completely built and operating.

by est31 6y ago

redis_mlc 6y ago

The HN nuclear apologists are disgusting. Japan will end up spending in the area of $1 Trillion dollars on Fukushima "cleanup" - where "cleanup" means moving dirt from one pile to another forever. 250,000 residents were displaced, many living in school gyms until they died.

aeternum 6y ago

While I like nuclear tech, we do need to acknowledge the cost and time-to-build problem. Reactors take so long to build that by the time they are operational, the tech is out-dated. While newer reactors should make a meltdown almost impossible, insuring against it is still quite expensive. This lead to high operational costs. The biggest enemy of nuclear is economics.

acidburnNSA 6y ago
There are some pretty wild solutions to this out there, like building large floating power plants in shipyards. Assembly line style. This was highly developed by a joint venture between Newport news and Westinghouse in the 1970s. Also, an important true fact is nuclear economics today are on par with system economics of all other hypothesized low carbon energy systems. Though wind and solar generator prices will fall, grid integration and storage will add $40/MWh. Nuclear is already right where other options will end up. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006
- philipkglass 6y ago
  The cost assumptions in that report don't extend high enough for nuclear. The "mid-range" cost for nuclear is given as $4700/kW. The "conservative" cost for nuclear is $7000/kW. But Flamanville 3 is going to finish at over $8800/kW even if there are no further delays or overruns. Hinkley Point C is also over $8800/kW. Vogtle 3 and 4, if they complete without any further budget overruns, are going to be over $11000/kW. Nuclear projects have such terrible track records on cost and schedule that they are going to be a last resort in any foreseeable cost-conscious decarbonization plan for the US. Which is too bad, because they really do crank out clean energy after they are completely built and operating.