6 ms·

My heart says no to nuclear power. My brain says yes.

coldtea 6y ago
My reasoning says regarless of the technical merits in theory, people have managed to mess every kind of nuclear reactor setup, have been saying for decades "this time with the new design it's different", and have a horrible track record of nuclear waste storage/disposal (or lack thereof).
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  >"mess every kind of nuclear reactor " There are many reactor designs that have never suffered an accident, and some of them have been around since the 50's. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor >"horrible track record of nuclear waste" Compared to what? On a normal year air pollution (combustion waste) kills 500,000 - 2,000,000 people, nuclear waste kills 0.
- p_l 6y ago
  If you limit to USA, maybe that's true. France managed to keep all its waste in a small hall thanks to reprocessing. Both Chernobyl and Fukushima involved ancient designs coupled with extra non-reactor errors.
- yodelshady 6y ago
  My reasoning says we have a few thousand tonnes of solid radioactive waste and a few tens of billions of tonnes of gaseous fossil waste that is wreaking havoc planetwide. California alone, THIS YEAR alone, has lost an area 3 times the size of the Chernobyl exclusion zone due to weather that should be unusual, but won't be. Australia likewise. Forests near me have been lost due to parasites who should be killed by a frost that never came. This is the new normal. This doesn't end. Those were the two options, and you knew it. Sorry but my life has been stories of people who claim to be environmental and frustrate every single practical effort to reduce emissions, then claim ignorance of the consequences. You knew.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    Sorry, but there's a third option: reduce production and consumption (no quick fashion, more durable products, right to repair, penalty on constant ads, etc.), reduce needless transport (e.g. work from home, cut down tourism industry, cut down useless imports/exports, etc.), scale down population growth (this is already happening), and so on. Unless we curb the endless growth mindset, the world will become a dumpster full of garbage anyway, regardless of the energy source. And cheapo power will only encourage "more of the same".
- wcoenen 6y ago
  I think the concerns around nuclear waste storage are a little overblown. A lot of nuclear waste is stored on site, which is an indication of how incredibly little of it is produced. Compare that to the hundreds of millions of tons (!) of toxic coal ash that are produced and dumped somewhere annually. Surely trading millions of tons of coal ash for a few tons of nuclear waste would be an improvement?
  - Tepix 6y ago
    You are not considering how long this stuff will be around and how dangerous it is. That's like comparing a stockpile of bombs and comparing it to a single atomic bomb.
    - wcoenen 6y ago
      A dump of coal ash will contain high levels of lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, arsenic, and selenium. Which will either slowly leach into ground water and water ways (sometimes abruptly by dam failures) or must be kept contained forever. Heavy metal toxicity may be less dangerous than contamination with radioactive isotopes. But it's not clear to me that the waste rich in heavy metals is preferable if there's millions of times more of it. Because of the smaller scale, radioactive waste could just be put in a big building with some armed guards and regular inspections. Coal ash cannot be kept contained to that degree.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    Here's a counter example: a single person getting access to nuclear waste and e.g. spreading it through a city, can kill tens of thousands. A little more difficult to do with coal ash or conventional waste...
- imtringued 6y ago
  I agree. The insistence on new designs is making me feel like they still haven't figured out what the real problem is.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  a horrible track record of nuclear waste storage/disposal (or lack thereof) What is this horrible track record of which you speak? Some examples please.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    LMGTFY! https://earther.gizmodo.com/this-town-didnt-want-to-be-a-radioactive-waste-dump-th-1834789264 https://earther.gizmodo.com/this-town-didnt-want-to-be-a-rad... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclear-environment-idUSKBN18M2OP https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclear-environment-i... https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/kentucky-towns-illegally-dumped-radioactive-waste/ https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry... https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2008-09-20-year-long-german-nuclear-leak-scandal-engulfs-country-and-disturbs-europe https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2008-09-20-year-long... https://www.resilience.org/stories/2004-10-30/scotland-exposed-scandal-nuclear-leaks-plant/ https://www.resilience.org/stories/2004-10-30/scotland-expos... https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/un-atomic-agency-probing-delhi-radioactive-waste-scandal-416832 https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/un-atomic-agency-probing-del... https://apnews.com/ba820f02074247fc8486b63b7c87d6cb/russias-nuclear-nightmare-flows-down-radioactive-river https://apnews.com/ba820f02074247fc8486b63b7c87d6cb/russias-... https://www.upi.com/Energy-News/2008/09/08/Nuclear-waste-scandal-in-Germany/41831220906136/ https://www.upi.com/Energy-News/2008/09/08/Nuclear-waste-sca... https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-23-2018-1.4628764/nuclear-waste-disposal-in-canada-is-an-accident-waiting-to-happen-says-indigenous-leader-1.4629258 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-23... https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2020/02/oregons-response-to-illegal-radioactive-waste-dumping-is-a-joke.html https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2020/02/oregons-response... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_%27Ndrangheta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_%27... and tons more
lawlessone 6y ago
Yeah i'd prefer renewable energy.. but we've wasted too much time for that. We are probably too late in general.
- patall 6y ago
  > Yeah i'd prefer renewable energy.. but we've wasted too much time for that. If that is your first thought, why would you even think of nuclear power as an alternative? Hinkley Point C "might" be finished 17 years after inception. If everything goes right from now on. For 9+ ct per kWh.
  - lawlessone 6y ago
    WEll, it's my first thought, and i'm not energy expert.
  - p_l 6y ago
    Ask about why it took so much time. And consider how German wind farms look fine on net total, but can't provide power to south of Germany, so usually during max production time they pay Netherlands to shut off their wind farms and send the over produced power there. If there was a real will to build low carbon power, we would be assembling both renewables and nuclear out of mass produced modules
phre4k 6y ago
Nuclear power is pretty cool if you don't build the plants in risky areas or ignore safety measures. I'm a radiation safety officer and the completeness of precautions taken is inversely proportional to the amount of greediness of the company's CEO. Until that's solved, nuclear power is a double-edged sword, as seen in Chernobyl and Fukushima. There's currently no perfect solution to that energy problem. What many people don't know: There's more radiation set free by coal power plants than nuclear power plants because they burn that stuff and blow it into the air.
- dewey 6y ago
  > There's more radiation set free by coal power plants than nuclear power plants because they burn that stuff and blow it into the air. Trying to understand this: "more radiation set free by coal power plants than nuclear power plants" Is that for the day-to-day operations of a plant? I actually thought nuclear power plants don't emit any radiation in normal operations and only if something bad happens. Or if it's referring to a Fukushima like event how do you compare that? I have a hard time putting these two in relation.
  - goatinaboat 6y ago
    is that for the day-to-day operations of a plant? I actually thought nuclear power plants don't emit any radiation in normal operations There are naturally occurring particulates of radioactive elements in coal, these are released into the environment in the exhaust. No-one cares about this but they panic over a nuclear power station which actually emits an order of magnitude less radiation.
    - dewey 6y ago
      > but they panic over a nuclear power station I don't think anyone panics over a nuclear power station that's working. What people are afraid of is a Fukushima / Chernobyl in their backyard and the non-existing long term storage options that are more sophisticated than burying it in the holes.
  - pvaldes 6y ago
scandox 6y ago
My brain says human societies cannot guarantee the sort of long term management and integrity required to keep these facilities safe over extremely long lifetimes.
pjc50 6y ago
My inner project manager says "why do all these projects overrun in cost and time" and "don't let the best be the enemy of the good". You can build a lot of renewables in the time it takes to get a nuclear plant up and running.

My reasoning says regarless of the technical merits in theory, people have managed to mess every kind of nuclear reactor setup, have been saying for decades "this time with the new design it's different", and have a horrible track record of nuclear waste storage/disposal (or lack thereof).

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
>"mess every kind of nuclear reactor " There are many reactor designs that have never suffered an accident, and some of them have been around since the 50's. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor >"horrible track record of nuclear waste" Compared to what? On a normal year air pollution (combustion waste) kills 500,000 - 2,000,000 people, nuclear waste kills 0.
p_l 6y ago
If you limit to USA, maybe that's true. France managed to keep all its waste in a small hall thanks to reprocessing. Both Chernobyl and Fukushima involved ancient designs coupled with extra non-reactor errors.
yodelshady 6y ago
My reasoning says we have a few thousand tonnes of solid radioactive waste and a few tens of billions of tonnes of gaseous fossil waste that is wreaking havoc planetwide. California alone, THIS YEAR alone, has lost an area 3 times the size of the Chernobyl exclusion zone due to weather that should be unusual, but won't be. Australia likewise. Forests near me have been lost due to parasites who should be killed by a frost that never came. This is the new normal. This doesn't end. Those were the two options, and you knew it. Sorry but my life has been stories of people who claim to be environmental and frustrate every single practical effort to reduce emissions, then claim ignorance of the consequences. You knew.
- coldtea 6y ago
  Sorry, but there's a third option: reduce production and consumption (no quick fashion, more durable products, right to repair, penalty on constant ads, etc.), reduce needless transport (e.g. work from home, cut down tourism industry, cut down useless imports/exports, etc.), scale down population growth (this is already happening), and so on. Unless we curb the endless growth mindset, the world will become a dumpster full of garbage anyway, regardless of the energy source. And cheapo power will only encourage "more of the same".
wcoenen 6y ago
I think the concerns around nuclear waste storage are a little overblown. A lot of nuclear waste is stored on site, which is an indication of how incredibly little of it is produced. Compare that to the hundreds of millions of tons (!) of toxic coal ash that are produced and dumped somewhere annually. Surely trading millions of tons of coal ash for a few tons of nuclear waste would be an improvement?
- Tepix 6y ago
  You are not considering how long this stuff will be around and how dangerous it is. That's like comparing a stockpile of bombs and comparing it to a single atomic bomb.
  - wcoenen 6y ago
    A dump of coal ash will contain high levels of lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, arsenic, and selenium. Which will either slowly leach into ground water and water ways (sometimes abruptly by dam failures) or must be kept contained forever. Heavy metal toxicity may be less dangerous than contamination with radioactive isotopes. But it's not clear to me that the waste rich in heavy metals is preferable if there's millions of times more of it. Because of the smaller scale, radioactive waste could just be put in a big building with some armed guards and regular inspections. Coal ash cannot be kept contained to that degree.
- coldtea 6y ago
  Here's a counter example: a single person getting access to nuclear waste and e.g. spreading it through a city, can kill tens of thousands. A little more difficult to do with coal ash or conventional waste...
imtringued 6y ago
I agree. The insistence on new designs is making me feel like they still haven't figured out what the real problem is.
goatinaboat 6y ago
a horrible track record of nuclear waste storage/disposal (or lack thereof) What is this horrible track record of which you speak? Some examples please.
- coldtea 6y ago
  LMGTFY! https://earther.gizmodo.com/this-town-didnt-want-to-be-a-radioactive-waste-dump-th-1834789264 https://earther.gizmodo.com/this-town-didnt-want-to-be-a-rad... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclear-environment-idUSKBN18M2OP https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclear-environment-i... https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/kentucky-towns-illegally-dumped-radioactive-waste/ https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry... https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2008-09-20-year-long-german-nuclear-leak-scandal-engulfs-country-and-disturbs-europe https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2008-09-20-year-long... https://www.resilience.org/stories/2004-10-30/scotland-exposed-scandal-nuclear-leaks-plant/ https://www.resilience.org/stories/2004-10-30/scotland-expos... https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/un-atomic-agency-probing-delhi-radioactive-waste-scandal-416832 https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/un-atomic-agency-probing-del... https://apnews.com/ba820f02074247fc8486b63b7c87d6cb/russias-nuclear-nightmare-flows-down-radioactive-river https://apnews.com/ba820f02074247fc8486b63b7c87d6cb/russias-... https://www.upi.com/Energy-News/2008/09/08/Nuclear-waste-scandal-in-Germany/41831220906136/ https://www.upi.com/Energy-News/2008/09/08/Nuclear-waste-sca... https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-23-2018-1.4628764/nuclear-waste-disposal-in-canada-is-an-accident-waiting-to-happen-says-indigenous-leader-1.4629258 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-23... https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2020/02/oregons-response-to-illegal-radioactive-waste-dumping-is-a-joke.html https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2020/02/oregons-response... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_%27Ndrangheta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_%27... and tons more

lawlessone 6y ago

Yeah i'd prefer renewable energy.. but we've wasted too much time for that. We are probably too late in general.

patall 6y ago
> Yeah i'd prefer renewable energy.. but we've wasted too much time for that. If that is your first thought, why would you even think of nuclear power as an alternative? Hinkley Point C "might" be finished 17 years after inception. If everything goes right from now on. For 9+ ct per kWh.
- lawlessone 6y ago
  WEll, it's my first thought, and i'm not energy expert.
- p_l 6y ago
  Ask about why it took so much time. And consider how German wind farms look fine on net total, but can't provide power to south of Germany, so usually during max production time they pay Netherlands to shut off their wind farms and send the over produced power there. If there was a real will to build low carbon power, we would be assembling both renewables and nuclear out of mass produced modules

phre4k 6y ago

Nuclear power is pretty cool if you don't build the plants in risky areas or ignore safety measures. I'm a radiation safety officer and the completeness of precautions taken is inversely proportional to the amount of greediness of the company's CEO. Until that's solved, nuclear power is a double-edged sword, as seen in Chernobyl and Fukushima. There's currently no perfect solution to that energy problem. What many people don't know: There's more radiation set free by coal power plants than nuclear power plants because they burn that stuff and blow it into the air.

dewey 6y ago
> There's more radiation set free by coal power plants than nuclear power plants because they burn that stuff and blow it into the air. Trying to understand this: "more radiation set free by coal power plants than nuclear power plants" Is that for the day-to-day operations of a plant? I actually thought nuclear power plants don't emit any radiation in normal operations and only if something bad happens. Or if it's referring to a Fukushima like event how do you compare that? I have a hard time putting these two in relation.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  is that for the day-to-day operations of a plant? I actually thought nuclear power plants don't emit any radiation in normal operations There are naturally occurring particulates of radioactive elements in coal, these are released into the environment in the exhaust. No-one cares about this but they panic over a nuclear power station which actually emits an order of magnitude less radiation.
  - dewey 6y ago
    > but they panic over a nuclear power station I don't think anyone panics over a nuclear power station that's working. What people are afraid of is a Fukushima / Chernobyl in their backyard and the non-existing long term storage options that are more sophisticated than burying it in the holes.
- pvaldes 6y ago

scandox 6y ago

My brain says human societies cannot guarantee the sort of long term management and integrity required to keep these facilities safe over extremely long lifetimes.

pjc50 6y ago

My inner project manager says "why do all these projects overrun in cost and time" and "don't let the best be the enemy of the good". You can build a lot of renewables in the time it takes to get a nuclear plant up and running.