6 ms·

"Officially safe" is a hilarious term which tries to predict the possibility of an MCA or "Maximum Credible Accident." Of course, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl,

"Officially safe" is a hilarious term which tries to predict the possibility of an MCA or "Maximum Credible Accident." Of course, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima were also "officially safe" when they were built.

melling 6y ago
The passive safety is a big leap forward. Removing humans from that process makes it safer. "In the event of any runaway reactor event, NuScale says, the reactor quenches itself in its pool, making it “passively safe.”"
- cma 6y ago
  Any plausible scenarios where the pool leaks?
core-questions 6y ago
What a bad faith post. > Three Mile Island Was handled reasonably well, resulted in safety improvements to procedures and designs for future reactors. From https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html#summary https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3... > The approximately 2 million people around TMI-2 during the accident are estimated to have received an average radiation dose of only about 1 millirem above the usual background dose. To put this into context, exposure from a chest X-ray is about 6 millirem and the area's natural radioactive background dose is about 100-125 millirem per year for the area. The accident's maximum dose to a person at the site boundary would have been less than 100 millirem above background. Not exactly the end of the world. > Chernobyl Accident caused by Communists who did not care about what happened to Ukrainians, as usual for them, and experimented with something that any nuclear physicist could have told them was a terrible idea. This is like blaming vehicles and calling them unsafe after reaching over from the passenger seat and yanking the wheel to drive a truck into a crowd. The moral of the story here is to keep Communists away from anything important, which applies to farms, industrial sectors, food distribution, and really most things more complicated than a pitchfork or a torch. > Fukushima Was reasonably safe for its long life, but they cheaped out on the necessary wall and drainage functionality; should probably have been decomm'd and replaced before this happened. The problem in the nuclear industry is that anti-nuclear people like you form public opinion that causes it to be difficult for it to move forward. New plants based on newer designs are orders of magnitude safer - e.g. the CANDU Canadian reactor which is more fail-safe than most, and the push towards 4th generation reactors. Get out of the way and let the planet have a clean base load energy source, or be sitting here bitching about carbon footprints 50 years from now when it should be a solved problem already.
- isatty 6y ago
  > Accident caused by Communists who did not care about what happened to Ukrainians There were many such RBMK reactors spread all over the Soviet world that had the same flaws . There are many problems with your summary so can I just recommend that you watch the HBO mini series "Chernobyl" instead? It's a great watch.
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    That mini series is indeed a great watch but it's also not exactly factual.
    - regularfry 6y ago
      Are there inaccuracies around the portrayal of why and how the reactor failed?
      - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
        I don’t think there are fundamental inaccuracies about that, but there are many exaggerations about the immediate aftermath. E.g. the fireman’s hand burning from touching a graphite fragment stood out as a particularly egregious one. And it is in fact shown that the disaster was caused by incompetence and carelessness, which does support GGPs point.
  - core-questions 6y ago
    Flaws? The meltdown was caused by a deliberate action on behalf of people with control of the plant. I haven't watched Chernobyl because I prefer to not get my history from television shows with a narrative axe to grind.
    - regularfry 6y ago
      My understanding is that those actions were only capable of causing the problems they did because of specific design choices involved in the coolant and moderation systems. Is that wrong?
jimiray 6y ago
I think picking a few accidents and saying that all nuclear is unsafe is such a disingenuous argument any more. All of those plants were based on extremely old designs and there have been tons of improvements. How about we focus on the "portable" nuclear power that is used by the US Navy for submarines and aircraft carriers safely.
duxup 6y ago
This seems like fretting over a term. Everything is 'safe' until we discover it isn't and improve. Many things have improved over times. Calling them safe seems fine, we can do so understanding the process of learning and advancing.

melling 6y ago

The passive safety is a big leap forward. Removing humans from that process makes it safer. "In the event of any runaway reactor event, NuScale says, the reactor quenches itself in its pool, making it “passively safe.”"

cma 6y ago
Any plausible scenarios where the pool leaks?

core-questions 6y ago

What a bad faith post. > Three Mile Island Was handled reasonably well, resulted in safety improvements to procedures and designs for future reactors. From https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html#summary https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3... > The approximately 2 million people around TMI-2 during the accident are estimated to have received an average radiation dose of only about 1 millirem above the usual background dose. To put this into context, exposure from a chest X-ray is about 6 millirem and the area's natural radioactive background dose is about 100-125 millirem per year for the area. The accident's maximum dose to a person at the site boundary would have been less than 100 millirem above background. Not exactly the end of the world. > Chernobyl Accident caused by Communists who did not care about what happened to Ukrainians, as usual for them, and experimented with something that any nuclear physicist could have told them was a terrible idea. This is like blaming vehicles and calling them unsafe after reaching over from the passenger seat and yanking the wheel to drive a truck into a crowd. The moral of the story here is to keep Communists away from anything important, which applies to farms, industrial sectors, food distribution, and really most things more complicated than a pitchfork or a torch. > Fukushima Was reasonably safe for its long life, but they cheaped out on the necessary wall and drainage functionality; should probably have been decomm'd and replaced before this happened. The problem in the nuclear industry is that anti-nuclear people like you form public opinion that causes it to be difficult for it to move forward. New plants based on newer designs are orders of magnitude safer - e.g. the CANDU Canadian reactor which is more fail-safe than most, and the push towards 4th generation reactors. Get out of the way and let the planet have a clean base load energy source, or be sitting here bitching about carbon footprints 50 years from now when it should be a solved problem already.

isatty 6y ago
> Accident caused by Communists who did not care about what happened to Ukrainians There were many such RBMK reactors spread all over the Soviet world that had the same flaws . There are many problems with your summary so can I just recommend that you watch the HBO mini series "Chernobyl" instead? It's a great watch.
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  That mini series is indeed a great watch but it's also not exactly factual.
  - regularfry 6y ago
    Are there inaccuracies around the portrayal of why and how the reactor failed?
    - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
      I don’t think there are fundamental inaccuracies about that, but there are many exaggerations about the immediate aftermath. E.g. the fireman’s hand burning from touching a graphite fragment stood out as a particularly egregious one. And it is in fact shown that the disaster was caused by incompetence and carelessness, which does support GGPs point.
- core-questions 6y ago
  Flaws? The meltdown was caused by a deliberate action on behalf of people with control of the plant. I haven't watched Chernobyl because I prefer to not get my history from television shows with a narrative axe to grind.
  - regularfry 6y ago
    My understanding is that those actions were only capable of causing the problems they did because of specific design choices involved in the coolant and moderation systems. Is that wrong?

jimiray 6y ago

I think picking a few accidents and saying that all nuclear is unsafe is such a disingenuous argument any more. All of those plants were based on extremely old designs and there have been tons of improvements. How about we focus on the "portable" nuclear power that is used by the US Navy for submarines and aircraft carriers safely.

duxup 6y ago

This seems like fretting over a term. Everything is 'safe' until we discover it isn't and improve. Many things have improved over times. Calling them safe seems fine, we can do so understanding the process of learning and advancing.