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> Picture a few large cities with contractors running around every roof tending to solar panels and compare to a few experts at a single nuclear power plant. Fo
by jpdus 6y ago
> Picture a few large cities with contractors running around every roof tending to solar panels and compare to a few experts at a single nuclear power plant. For the contractors-on-roofs, the slip & falls add up even though they'll never get an HBO mini-series.
This is a very flawed and short-sighted argument. Averages don't matter when you are talking about fat-tailed/power law risk distributions.
Nobody would be opposed to PVs on roofs in their neighborhood b/c some construction workers fall to death every year - this risk is well calculable.
But (almost) everyone would be opposed to a fission plant or nuclear waste facility next door - and rightfully so.
Without enormous direct and indirect subsidies, nuclear (fission) isnt commercially viable anywhere in the world. Heck, you still can't insure a fission plant.
Yes, in theory fission would have been the best option for carbon-free energy. No, in practice humanity never figured out how to safely and efficiently use this power source and now renewables are a way safer and cheaper bet. You won't find any objective economic analysis (that incorporates such indirect subsidies as the implicit state guarantee and realistic building and waste handling/storing costs) that can show otherwise.
- arkh 6y ago> But (almost) everyone would be opposed to a fission plant or nuclear waste facility next door - and rightfully so. Reading this kind of debate from France is a good laugh. If you're interested you can check where our electricity comes from here: https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/la-production-delectricite-par-filiere https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/la-production-delectricit... (between 60 and 70 percent of nuclear energy today).
- worik 6y agoBecause France was desperate to have its own nuclear weapons. It was not economic for them either (tho back in the day it displaced coal - try having a coal plant next door)
- iso8859-1 6y agoWhat is the point of bringing up economics when we are talking about life and death? How can you even measure if something is economic or not if you haven't defined what a human life is worth?
- philipkglass 6y agoFrance's nuclear power program actually displaced oil. France had a lot of oil fired electric power plants in the 1960s when it was a cheap fuel. As a reaction to the oil price shocks of the 1970s, France committed to the "Messmer Plan" for nuclear electricity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Messmer_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Messme... France demonstrated its first fission bomb in 1960 and its first thermonuclear bomb in 1968: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_and_weapons_of_mass_des... The 1970s and 1980s build up of nuclear power in France had nothing to do with desperation to have its own nuclear weapons. France already had them before the Messmer Plan.
- worik 6y ago"France's nuclear power program actually displaced oil" No. Oil is much cheaper To maintain a nuclear arsenal a nuclear industry is needed. It is the only economic justification for nuclear power
- iso8859-1 6y agoSo you don't think something can be expensive because it is heavily regulated? Or do you just think it is not possible with less regulation?
- tarsinge 6y agoAlso see electricitymap.org
- pfdietz 6y agoAnd then check out the cost overruns on Flamanville 3. What is now, 4x the initial cost promise? Or is it 6x? New nuclear is dead in France just like it is in the US.
- Retric 6y agoFrance exported and imported a vast amounts of electricity during it’s nuclear hay day and still needed huge subsidies. In effect they where little different than people living near a local nuclear reactor getting most of their power from it while extremely dependent on the wider electric grid to meet demand and lower overall prices. Which as odd as it sounds demonstrated civilian nuclear inability to scale as they still needed to reduce power plant utilization by ~10%.
- cameldrv 6y agoI agree that costs are a major problem with nuclear. It seems to be a problem with all large scale construction projects in the past 20-30 years or so. On the safety tail risks, IMO it's more of a psychological/perception problem than a problem of actual risk. We've had a number of serious accidents in the history of nuclear power, and none of them have led to anything close to the death toll of a single year of running coal plants.
- sfifs 6y agoThe problem is actually that people are forced off of their homes, personal property and way if life should there be a big accident. For an average householder it's their life savings, friendships, community and way of life wiped out through no fault of theirs. Sure there'll be compensation and resettlement but who trusts governments to do this fairly and painlessly? It hasn't helped that no civilian nuclear operator has demonstrated the ability to sustain safe operations with zero incidents and consistently prioritize safety over the course of decades. Every operator has a string of nuclear incidents of varying severity and i think more than anything, the Fukushima thing shook people up because while you could excuse away Russian and American accidents with cultural factors nobody perceives Japanese to be careless or irresponsible (and this was expressly the reasoning that led Angela Merkel to reverse her stance) So yeah in abstract at a nation level, it's not a major risk but for the families possibly affected, it's a catastrophe - as opposed to increased chance of a few people getting cancer over their lifetime from Coal. Therefore given the asymmetric risk and demonstrated inability of the nuclear industry in ensuring zero incidents, there's naturally grassroots opposition which translates into political pressure that no amount of "risk is so low" data-flashing can wave away.
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago> and this was expressly the reasoning that led Angela Merkel to reverse her stance I know a lot of Germans who think that reversal was just opportunistic pandering to environmentalists to grab votes from the Green party.
- bassman9000 6y agoAverages don't matter when you are talking about fat-tailed/power law risk distributions. Nobody would be opposed to PVs on roofs in their neighborhood b/c some construction workers fall to death every year - this risk is well calculable. But (almost) everyone would be opposed to a fission plant or nuclear waste facility next door - and rightfully so. How is this even an argument. Nuclear risks are also calculable. The regulatory hurdles nuclear has to go trough, even for testing reactors, to meet risk criteria (among others), are enormous. The vast majority of nuclear, as exposed by deaths/TWh generated, is extremely safe. Flying vs driving argument. Take the worst nuclear catastrophe. Take the wildest overestimation in deaths. It's still less than most other sources, including renewables. No, in practice humanity never figured out how to safely and efficiently use this power source What? France. All their active residues probably fit in one or two football fields. 3th/4th Gen will consume them, making medical radioisotopes in the process. You can't contain megatons of CO2 this easily. In the meantime, air pollution kills in the range of 6-8 million people a year. German support for keeping nuclear grows https://twitter.com/hh_mikawe/status/1284770806090825728?s=20 https://twitter.com/hh_mikawe/status/1284770806090825728?s=2...
- jtolmar 6y agoWhat makes you think nuclear power has a power law risk distribution? For that to be true, it'd have to be possible for an unboundedly large nuclear accident.. Just because something has more concentrated risk doesn't make it fat tail. Nuclear power's winning safety record already includes Chernobyl and Fukushima.
- belorn 6y agoRenewables are only safer and cheaper bet once the battery issue is solved and can be made equally green, safe and cheap. The primary reason why nuclear isn't commercial viable today is that combining natural gas and renewables makes for a very cheap energy grid.
- worik 6y agoNope. There are other alternatives, and grid scale batteries are viable now. Just cheaper to burn gas/coal and fsck the future! The obvious alternative is pumped hydro, that is well established. Another is demand management, unexplored because the greed heads in control do not believe that our society can work together for the common good. Coming from Aotearoa, as I do, I know that is a fat lie.
- aspenmayer 6y agoI have seen Aoraki with my own eyes, and I understand what you seek to protect.
- worik 6y agoFor the locals Aoraki is a literal ancestor. So it is not my job, it is taken care of.
- aspenmayer 6y agoI suppose I was unclear. Please forgive me. We need to protect the idea of preservation in culture and society, so that future people also hold these ideals of caretaking and awareness of our ancestors, including the planet and life itself, to be true.
- indigo945 6y agoAnother alternative is to just build so many renewable energy plants that demand can be served even when production is comparatively low. During peak production hours, you can just blow the energy back into the atmosphere (or run a steel mill with it). This is a question of political will, and nothing more.