11 ms·

Assuming nuclear truly can be ultra safe, how do you convince a public that has seen Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima to get on board? Particularly w

Assuming nuclear truly can be ultra safe, how do you convince a public that has seen Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima to get on board? Particularly when the "competition" (solar, wind, etc) has such a strong tailwind.

redm 6y ago
1) I don't think its a zero sum game, nuclear doesn't preclude solar or wind. In-fact, thats how it's working now. Competition will drive improvements and optimization. 2) Accidents do happen with technology and the repercussions of nuclear accidents are serious. That doesn't mean we shouldn't re-think the technology and how it can be applied in a better or safer way, including cold fusion.
- GuB-42 6y ago
  > I don't think its a zero sum game, nuclear doesn't preclude solar or wind. That's what I'd like to think, but it doesn't seem to be a good match. Nuclear plants want constant power output, they are ideal for base load. Solar and wind production vary during the day, and they don't always meet demand. That problem is called the "duck curve": too much is produced during the day and too little just after sunset. That's the reason why the best plants to complement solar and wind are those that can vary their output on demand. And unfortunately, that's typically coal (see Germany). Hydro would be ideal but its capacity depends is limited by the terrain.
  - jabl 6y ago
    > Nuclear plants want constant power output, they are ideal for base load. Solar and wind production vary during the day, and they don't always meet demand. That problem is called the "duck curve": too much is produced during the day and too little just after sunset. That's the reason why the best plants to complement solar and wind are those that can vary their output on demand. And unfortunately, that's typically coal (see Germany). Hydro would be ideal but its capacity depends is limited by the terrain. Modeling suggests there is a place for nuclear, or more generally, dispatchable (firm) low-carbon resources in deep decarbonized electricity grids. See e.g. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006 As for the duck curve, you can flatten it with solar panels that are angled to the south-west rather than straight to the south, and some moderate amount of battery storage. That still leaves the problem of how to deal with the baseload. Nuclear could be a good candidate for that.
dangerface 6y ago
> (solar, wind, etc) has such a strong tailwind. Do they? I love renewables but for some reason the masses still just don't think you can get enough energy out of sky farts and hippy sun rays. The fact that ALL energy in our solar system comes from the sun is irrelevant the sun just doesn't feel very powerful. The public knows that nuclear is super powerful. > how do you convince a public that has seen Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima to get on board? The same way we convinced people to build them after Hiroshima. The same way we currently convince people to build coal plants when there are better alternatives. People want energy and they don't really care about the environmental / human cost.
- aqme28 6y ago
  People aren't afraid of solar panels, and the tailwind probably refers to the fact that they're getting cheaper at an extremely rapid pace.
  - dangerface 6y ago
    People are afraid of having no energy, they think the sun is too weak to provide that energy and so we must burn things like coal, gas, oil, uranium whatever, see detritus reply as an example.
- detritus 6y ago
  > The fact that ALL energy in our solar system comes from the sun is irrelevant Except human-made nuclear fission energy on Earth, somewhat ironically, given the thread.
  - aqme28 6y ago
    And geothermal.
    - dangerface 6y ago
      ahhh you got me thats the only other source of energy in our solar system but thats the exception that proves the rule.
3pt14159 6y ago
Deaths per joule are the lowest out of any major fuel source except for maybe wind, which is debatable depending on your assumptions about the future.
- rbecker 6y ago
  Sources on the deaths per joule claim: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-ener... https://energycentral.com/c/ec/deaths-nuclear-energy-compared-other-causes https://energycentral.com/c/ec/deaths-nuclear-energy-compare...
- typeformer 6y ago
  Yeah perhaps but the tail risks are much higher.
- rektide 6y ago
  Except... we don't know what the deaths are. It will take tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years to know what the death toll is from nuclear power. Because humanity is stuck with the waste for hundreds of thousands of years. We use only tiny amount of the energy available, then have waste to deal with through the ages. I'm in favor of nuclear, but wow are we ever terrible at innovating & trying to make a respectful, compelling go at it. Kerry shutting down the Integral Fast Reactor keeps coming back to haunt me as one of those strong indicators that America doesn't want to put itself up to the challenge of doing nuclear responsibly.
  - evgen 6y ago
    Out of curiosity, is there a single death that is directly attributable to nuclear waste from a reactor? (want to add that last clause because I do not think nukes should get blamed for someone improperly dumping medical equipment with cobalt or cesium isotope generators) For some reason I want to assume this happened at some point, maybe back in the 50s or 60s when we were really sloppy with nuclear waste but I can't seem to find any.
    - 6y ago
manfredo 6y ago
First, point out that Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island, and Fukushima amount to extremely small numbers of deaths relative to the power these plants generated. For three mile island and Fukushima this figure is zero among the public. Less than two dozen among the plant workers (all of which died due to the hydrogen explosion not radiation). The areas that were evacuated are now safe to return. Chernobyl was worse, but th Soviets didn't even bother with secondary containment. They didn't bother to put a concrete dome over the reactor. Even then, ~200 people died. This is a fairly small death toll for a worst-case failure. Contrast this with hydroelectricity, for example, which has resulted in the deaths of tena of thousands of people and the displacement of millions due to dam collapses [1]. Competition in the form of wind and solar are intermittent, requiring storage on a massive scale to offer a path to decarbonization. With 12 hours of energy storage, the US could reach 80% renewable generation. To get to 100% we need 3 weeks of storage according to estimates [2]. Currently, we have 8 seconds of battery storage compared to our 11.5 TWh daily electricity consumption. We have 4 minutes of hydroelectric storage, but hydroelectric storage is geographically limited. Increasing this by a factor of 180 is not feasible. In short, if the goal is decarbonization wind and solar don't actually present real competition. 1.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam 2. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-storage-80-percent-wind-solar/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...
- shpeedy 6y ago
  You are joking about "small numbers of deaths", right?, because this millennia is not over yet.
  - blamestross 6y ago
    Coal and gas still kill a LOT more https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/kharecha_02/ https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/kharecha_02/ Less dramatically so do Solar and Wind just by increased rate of people falling off roofs and towers: https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...
- 6y ago
beefok 6y ago
With the size constraint of that reactor (in volume), what's to say it would be used for the public? It could instead be the source of energy for a factory, or a data center for instance. I don't think we have to keep thinking about public use for these at all.
steeve 6y ago
How many deaths for Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima? Would that number change your mind?
- mdorazio 6y ago
  How many people with increased cancer rates from solar? Stop quoting deaths from nuclear accidents - the harm from nuclear incidents goes far beyond killing people outright.
  - V6HBGNQHU 6y ago
    How many people die from loosing power during winters and freezing to death? How many more would that be if everyone was using solar which can't provide enough power in winter?
    - quonn 6y ago
      I doubt anyone freezes to death in the EU, US, Australia, and Canada because of loosing power in winter.
      - tonyarkles 6y ago
        > Canada Oh? I’m in Southern Saskatchewan, about two hours away from the US border. It reliably drops to -40 here in the winter. The vast majority of us heat our homes with natural gas furnaces, driven by electric fans. Long power outages in the winter are a very very big deal, and luckily are quite rare. A few years ago we had one that lasted about 12 hours, and the indoor temperature had dropped to about 7C. If it had continued to drop, the first thing would be damaged plumbing/flooding... followed by people who don’t have a large cache of warm clothes starting to have trouble. Edit: oh, yeah... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1998_North_American_ice_storm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1998_North_American_ic...
      - V6HBGNQHU 6y ago
        > During 2006-2010, about 2,000 U.S. residents died each year from weather-related causes of death. About 31% of these deaths were attributed to exposure to excessive natural heat, heat stroke, sun stroke, or all; 63% were attributed to exposure to excessive natural cold, hypothermia, or both; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25073563/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25073563/
rurounijones 6y ago
The US Navy has been successfully operating Nuclear Reactors without incident for decades in the harshest environments on earth [1] It can be done safely. https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/security/fact0604.pdf https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/security/fact0604...
- Klinky 6y ago
  Apples to oranges. Reactor designs are completely different. They are basically set it and forget it designs that then require extremely costly refueling and refurbishment. Edit: I was wrong, the Ultra Safe Nuclear plan is somewhat similar. My comparison was with typical power grid reactor designs, not disposable reactors like what's being proposed.
  - wmf 6y ago
    That sounds exactly like the submission we're (supposed to be) discussing.
    - Klinky 6y ago
      You're actually right, in this case it is pretty comparable, so it's closer to apples to apples, which brings up concerns about costs and commercial viability of such a project, but that's not really point of this thread.
jk700 6y ago
In Ukraine, which lived through Chernobyl, public is mostly pro nuclear. Turns out solar and wind isn't actually competitive and nobody likes to pay rich "green energy" investors for no reason, so as long as they have no influence in the government and most mass media, it's pretty hard to convince people of the opposite - that they need to pay a lot more so that a tiny percentage of electricity could come from solar and wind [1]. [1] And even that is misleading and not in any way "greener", since solar and wind can't be used on demand it has to replace some energy, which in this case is nuclear energy, but it can replace only a small part of it, the rest will have to be replaced with something that can be generated on demand, like coal and gas.
- flor1s 6y ago
  Is there a particular reason why solar and wind aren't competitive in Ukraine, while in general it seems like those technologies are some of the cheapest sources of energy available today?
  - lightgreen 6y ago
    > those technologies are some of the cheapest sources of energy available today? No they are not. They only work well at small percentage of generation when you have enough hydropower backup (effectively, batteries): generate from solar during day, and generate from hydro at night (or use fossil fuel backup). > solar In California large amount of electricity is consumed by air conditioners (4%). And they work very well together: on hot days you need more electricity for air conditioners, and on hot days solar generation works better. And you need more air conditioners during summer, and solar works better during summer. The opposite is true in Ukraine. They don't need air conditioners because summers are not too hot, but but they need to heat buildings at winter because winters are very cold (when solar is very poor) especially at nights (when solar does not exist). > wind You cannot place wind turbines anywhere. You need a place with a constant high wind (that's why offsore farms work better). I guess there are no such places in Ukraine. And still you need to have a hydro or fossil fuel backup, because wind itself cannot produce electricity constantly. > cheapest sources of energy available today They are cheapest because they are subsidised on one hand, and on the other hand, nuclear is penalized by lawsuits and regulartions and inspections (in the US; in Ukraine the economy barely grows, they don't build much new power plants).
yongjik 6y ago
Ever heard of Kessennuma [1]? You probably don't remember the name. When the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake hit, an oil tank ruptured, caught fire, and burnt for four days. According to [2], 1,152 people were killed, with additional 214 missing. That's a similar level as Fukushima's expected casualties, probably more. But nobody talks about Kessennuma, and nobody brings it up as an evidence that fossil fuels are an inherently dangerous technology that must be purged from the earth to protect our children. Because, apparently, dying in an oil fire is not scary enough. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kesennuma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kesennuma [2] https://www.kesennuma-memorial.jp/english/ https://www.kesennuma-memorial.jp/english/
- Klinky 6y ago
  Is the point you're trying to make that nuclear and fossil fuels can both be dangerous during a natural disaster? I don't think anyone will dispute this.
  - yongjik 6y ago
    Well, I guess most people don't, but then again, they don't dispute this in the same way folks say "All politicians are bad!" - and when they go to voting booth, they always pick a particular party of their choice. And they come back, and until the next election they keep saying "Bah, politics! All politicians are bad!" The majority of our energies are generated by fossil fuels, in most industrial countries. This has to stop - I think that's much more urgent than arguing between nuclear and renewables.
Reedx 6y ago
Data and statistics aren't getting through, so maybe the answer is to rebrand it. Drop the word "nuclear". Chernobyl is too powerful of an association. All the data in the world is just no match for that story and imagery.
- EmilioMartinez 6y ago
  >rebrand it. Drop the word "nuclear". I laughed at the thought of A/B testing new names of fundamental forces across different demographics.
option 6y ago
I grew up near Chernobyl and my parents still work on Chernobyl power station. You actually don’t have to convince anyone there in the benefits of nuclear. Renewables are great but can’t meet 100% of demand. And when they can’t we should be using nuclear. As a CA resident now (who installed solar on my roof) it sickens me when our “leaders” scream “climate change” but close nuclear early and buy coal-generated electricity from Utah instead.
loeg 6y ago
Both the major incidents (Chernobyl and Fukushima) were reactors designed in the era of slide-rules. Neither is a 3rd or 4th generation design. Chernobyl was a bad design, and the incident resulted from Soviet mismanagement (keeping known RBMK reactor flaws secret) in tandem with local mismanagement (the test protocol was completely fucked). Fukushima required active cooling and could not cool itself using its own power output. And the backup generators were below sea level and the thing was on a fault line. Neither caused major loss of life. Three Mile Island was a scare, and did not cause significant damage or loss of life. Any newly constructed reactor would not have the design flaws of the Soviet RBMK and would be designed to fail-safe.
- 7952 6y ago
  You haven't answered the question though. How do you get the public on board?
  - loeg 6y ago
    It'd help to stop repeating mostly false stories (and leading questions) about Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima every time nuclear comes up. But how to persuade the general public that science and statistics matter when even HN is skeptical? You're right, I don't know how to do that.
    - 7952 6y ago
      Science works because you are able to control most of the variables. It simplifies the world into something that can be modelled. Major decisions like energy policy are just more complicated than that. It is hundreds of overlapping considerations that have no good single answer. Yes science still matters, but there are deeper political questions at play. You just need to accept that if you want to build big complex things in the environment. Of course these kind of issues can often be ignored with sufficient political support. Which is exactly what wind and solar have done in Europe. Try using science to prove that a wind turbine isn't ugly. Or that it is worth killing some bird of prey to get clean energy. Try using science to explain why a coal miner should lose their livelihood. Or why you should stop eating so much red meat. It does not work. At the heart of this debate is not scepticism of science, but scepticism of scientists and engineers. Scepticism that they really are as good as they say they are.
Udik 6y ago
Just ask people if they think climate change is an existential threat. If they answer yes (as will most people who are opposed to nuclear energy) then ask them if they think nuclear energy is an existential threat too or just extremely dangerous. If the answer is "just extremely dangerous" then the choice is simple. Actually, I can't understand why all those who are predicting doomsday scenarios because of climate change aren't storming the streets with big pro-nuclear energy signs.
- orthecreedence 6y ago
  > Actually, I can't understand why all those who are predicting doomsday scenarios because of climate change aren't storming the streets with big pro-nuclear energy signs. Agreed. Without being a primitivist, I don't think you can be both pro-environment and anti-nuclear at this point. Solar and wind just don't have the output to keep up with industry. If we're fine living in mud huts and it taking 6 months to produce a laptop, then fine (and honestly that might be the place we end up in 100 years). But as it is, solar and wind cannot sustain our current economy.
commonturtle 6y ago
This is the key question. Even if nuclear is made ultra safe, a single bad event (which is likely if we build hundreds of thousands of reactors world wide) can raise so much paranoia that future investments in nuclear can be affected. I have no idea how you could solve a problem like this.

redm 6y ago

1) I don't think its a zero sum game, nuclear doesn't preclude solar or wind. In-fact, thats how it's working now. Competition will drive improvements and optimization. 2) Accidents do happen with technology and the repercussions of nuclear accidents are serious. That doesn't mean we shouldn't re-think the technology and how it can be applied in a better or safer way, including cold fusion.

GuB-42 6y ago
> I don't think its a zero sum game, nuclear doesn't preclude solar or wind. That's what I'd like to think, but it doesn't seem to be a good match. Nuclear plants want constant power output, they are ideal for base load. Solar and wind production vary during the day, and they don't always meet demand. That problem is called the "duck curve": too much is produced during the day and too little just after sunset. That's the reason why the best plants to complement solar and wind are those that can vary their output on demand. And unfortunately, that's typically coal (see Germany). Hydro would be ideal but its capacity depends is limited by the terrain.
- jabl 6y ago
  > Nuclear plants want constant power output, they are ideal for base load. Solar and wind production vary during the day, and they don't always meet demand. That problem is called the "duck curve": too much is produced during the day and too little just after sunset. That's the reason why the best plants to complement solar and wind are those that can vary their output on demand. And unfortunately, that's typically coal (see Germany). Hydro would be ideal but its capacity depends is limited by the terrain. Modeling suggests there is a place for nuclear, or more generally, dispatchable (firm) low-carbon resources in deep decarbonized electricity grids. See e.g. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006 As for the duck curve, you can flatten it with solar panels that are angled to the south-west rather than straight to the south, and some moderate amount of battery storage. That still leaves the problem of how to deal with the baseload. Nuclear could be a good candidate for that.

dangerface 6y ago

> (solar, wind, etc) has such a strong tailwind. Do they? I love renewables but for some reason the masses still just don't think you can get enough energy out of sky farts and hippy sun rays. The fact that ALL energy in our solar system comes from the sun is irrelevant the sun just doesn't feel very powerful. The public knows that nuclear is super powerful. > how do you convince a public that has seen Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima to get on board? The same way we convinced people to build them after Hiroshima. The same way we currently convince people to build coal plants when there are better alternatives. People want energy and they don't really care about the environmental / human cost.

aqme28 6y ago
People aren't afraid of solar panels, and the tailwind probably refers to the fact that they're getting cheaper at an extremely rapid pace.
- dangerface 6y ago
  People are afraid of having no energy, they think the sun is too weak to provide that energy and so we must burn things like coal, gas, oil, uranium whatever, see detritus reply as an example.
detritus 6y ago
> The fact that ALL energy in our solar system comes from the sun is irrelevant Except human-made nuclear fission energy on Earth, somewhat ironically, given the thread.
- aqme28 6y ago
  And geothermal.
  - dangerface 6y ago
    ahhh you got me thats the only other source of energy in our solar system but thats the exception that proves the rule.

3pt14159 6y ago

Deaths per joule are the lowest out of any major fuel source except for maybe wind, which is debatable depending on your assumptions about the future.

rbecker 6y ago
Sources on the deaths per joule claim: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-ener... https://energycentral.com/c/ec/deaths-nuclear-energy-compared-other-causes https://energycentral.com/c/ec/deaths-nuclear-energy-compare...
typeformer 6y ago
Yeah perhaps but the tail risks are much higher.
rektide 6y ago
Except... we don't know what the deaths are. It will take tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years to know what the death toll is from nuclear power. Because humanity is stuck with the waste for hundreds of thousands of years. We use only tiny amount of the energy available, then have waste to deal with through the ages. I'm in favor of nuclear, but wow are we ever terrible at innovating & trying to make a respectful, compelling go at it. Kerry shutting down the Integral Fast Reactor keeps coming back to haunt me as one of those strong indicators that America doesn't want to put itself up to the challenge of doing nuclear responsibly.
- evgen 6y ago
  Out of curiosity, is there a single death that is directly attributable to nuclear waste from a reactor? (want to add that last clause because I do not think nukes should get blamed for someone improperly dumping medical equipment with cobalt or cesium isotope generators) For some reason I want to assume this happened at some point, maybe back in the 50s or 60s when we were really sloppy with nuclear waste but I can't seem to find any.
  - 6y ago

manfredo 6y ago

First, point out that Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island, and Fukushima amount to extremely small numbers of deaths relative to the power these plants generated. For three mile island and Fukushima this figure is zero among the public. Less than two dozen among the plant workers (all of which died due to the hydrogen explosion not radiation). The areas that were evacuated are now safe to return. Chernobyl was worse, but th Soviets didn't even bother with secondary containment. They didn't bother to put a concrete dome over the reactor. Even then, ~200 people died. This is a fairly small death toll for a worst-case failure. Contrast this with hydroelectricity, for example, which has resulted in the deaths of tena of thousands of people and the displacement of millions due to dam collapses [1]. Competition in the form of wind and solar are intermittent, requiring storage on a massive scale to offer a path to decarbonization. With 12 hours of energy storage, the US could reach 80% renewable generation. To get to 100% we need 3 weeks of storage according to estimates [2]. Currently, we have 8 seconds of battery storage compared to our 11.5 TWh daily electricity consumption. We have 4 minutes of hydroelectric storage, but hydroelectric storage is geographically limited. Increasing this by a factor of 180 is not feasible. In short, if the goal is decarbonization wind and solar don't actually present real competition. 1.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam 2. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-storage-80-percent-wind-solar/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...

shpeedy 6y ago
You are joking about "small numbers of deaths", right?, because this millennia is not over yet.
- blamestross 6y ago
  Coal and gas still kill a LOT more https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/kharecha_02/ https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/kharecha_02/ Less dramatically so do Solar and Wind just by increased rate of people falling off roofs and towers: https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...
6y ago

beefok 6y ago

With the size constraint of that reactor (in volume), what's to say it would be used for the public? It could instead be the source of energy for a factory, or a data center for instance. I don't think we have to keep thinking about public use for these at all.

steeve 6y ago

How many deaths for Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima? Would that number change your mind?

mdorazio 6y ago
How many people with increased cancer rates from solar? Stop quoting deaths from nuclear accidents - the harm from nuclear incidents goes far beyond killing people outright.
- V6HBGNQHU 6y ago
  How many people die from loosing power during winters and freezing to death? How many more would that be if everyone was using solar which can't provide enough power in winter?
  - quonn 6y ago
    I doubt anyone freezes to death in the EU, US, Australia, and Canada because of loosing power in winter.
    - tonyarkles 6y ago
      > Canada Oh? I’m in Southern Saskatchewan, about two hours away from the US border. It reliably drops to -40 here in the winter. The vast majority of us heat our homes with natural gas furnaces, driven by electric fans. Long power outages in the winter are a very very big deal, and luckily are quite rare. A few years ago we had one that lasted about 12 hours, and the indoor temperature had dropped to about 7C. If it had continued to drop, the first thing would be damaged plumbing/flooding... followed by people who don’t have a large cache of warm clothes starting to have trouble. Edit: oh, yeah... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1998_North_American_ice_storm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1998_North_American_ic...
    - V6HBGNQHU 6y ago
      > During 2006-2010, about 2,000 U.S. residents died each year from weather-related causes of death. About 31% of these deaths were attributed to exposure to excessive natural heat, heat stroke, sun stroke, or all; 63% were attributed to exposure to excessive natural cold, hypothermia, or both; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25073563/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25073563/

rurounijones 6y ago

The US Navy has been successfully operating Nuclear Reactors without incident for decades in the harshest environments on earth [1] It can be done safely. https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/security/fact0604.pdf https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/security/fact0604...

Klinky 6y ago
Apples to oranges. Reactor designs are completely different. They are basically set it and forget it designs that then require extremely costly refueling and refurbishment. Edit: I was wrong, the Ultra Safe Nuclear plan is somewhat similar. My comparison was with typical power grid reactor designs, not disposable reactors like what's being proposed.
- wmf 6y ago
  That sounds exactly like the submission we're (supposed to be) discussing.
  - Klinky 6y ago
    You're actually right, in this case it is pretty comparable, so it's closer to apples to apples, which brings up concerns about costs and commercial viability of such a project, but that's not really point of this thread.

jk700 6y ago

In Ukraine, which lived through Chernobyl, public is mostly pro nuclear. Turns out solar and wind isn't actually competitive and nobody likes to pay rich "green energy" investors for no reason, so as long as they have no influence in the government and most mass media, it's pretty hard to convince people of the opposite - that they need to pay a lot more so that a tiny percentage of electricity could come from solar and wind [1]. [1] And even that is misleading and not in any way "greener", since solar and wind can't be used on demand it has to replace some energy, which in this case is nuclear energy, but it can replace only a small part of it, the rest will have to be replaced with something that can be generated on demand, like coal and gas.

flor1s 6y ago
Is there a particular reason why solar and wind aren't competitive in Ukraine, while in general it seems like those technologies are some of the cheapest sources of energy available today?
- lightgreen 6y ago
  > those technologies are some of the cheapest sources of energy available today? No they are not. They only work well at small percentage of generation when you have enough hydropower backup (effectively, batteries): generate from solar during day, and generate from hydro at night (or use fossil fuel backup). > solar In California large amount of electricity is consumed by air conditioners (4%). And they work very well together: on hot days you need more electricity for air conditioners, and on hot days solar generation works better. And you need more air conditioners during summer, and solar works better during summer. The opposite is true in Ukraine. They don't need air conditioners because summers are not too hot, but but they need to heat buildings at winter because winters are very cold (when solar is very poor) especially at nights (when solar does not exist). > wind You cannot place wind turbines anywhere. You need a place with a constant high wind (that's why offsore farms work better). I guess there are no such places in Ukraine. And still you need to have a hydro or fossil fuel backup, because wind itself cannot produce electricity constantly. > cheapest sources of energy available today They are cheapest because they are subsidised on one hand, and on the other hand, nuclear is penalized by lawsuits and regulartions and inspections (in the US; in Ukraine the economy barely grows, they don't build much new power plants).

yongjik 6y ago

Ever heard of Kessennuma [1]? You probably don't remember the name. When the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake hit, an oil tank ruptured, caught fire, and burnt for four days. According to [2], 1,152 people were killed, with additional 214 missing. That's a similar level as Fukushima's expected casualties, probably more. But nobody talks about Kessennuma, and nobody brings it up as an evidence that fossil fuels are an inherently dangerous technology that must be purged from the earth to protect our children. Because, apparently, dying in an oil fire is not scary enough. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kesennuma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kesennuma [2] https://www.kesennuma-memorial.jp/english/ https://www.kesennuma-memorial.jp/english/

Klinky 6y ago
Is the point you're trying to make that nuclear and fossil fuels can both be dangerous during a natural disaster? I don't think anyone will dispute this.
- yongjik 6y ago
  Well, I guess most people don't, but then again, they don't dispute this in the same way folks say "All politicians are bad!" - and when they go to voting booth, they always pick a particular party of their choice. And they come back, and until the next election they keep saying "Bah, politics! All politicians are bad!" The majority of our energies are generated by fossil fuels, in most industrial countries. This has to stop - I think that's much more urgent than arguing between nuclear and renewables.

Reedx 6y ago

Data and statistics aren't getting through, so maybe the answer is to rebrand it. Drop the word "nuclear". Chernobyl is too powerful of an association. All the data in the world is just no match for that story and imagery.

EmilioMartinez 6y ago
>rebrand it. Drop the word "nuclear". I laughed at the thought of A/B testing new names of fundamental forces across different demographics.

option 6y ago

I grew up near Chernobyl and my parents still work on Chernobyl power station. You actually don’t have to convince anyone there in the benefits of nuclear. Renewables are great but can’t meet 100% of demand. And when they can’t we should be using nuclear. As a CA resident now (who installed solar on my roof) it sickens me when our “leaders” scream “climate change” but close nuclear early and buy coal-generated electricity from Utah instead.

loeg 6y ago

Both the major incidents (Chernobyl and Fukushima) were reactors designed in the era of slide-rules. Neither is a 3rd or 4th generation design. Chernobyl was a bad design, and the incident resulted from Soviet mismanagement (keeping known RBMK reactor flaws secret) in tandem with local mismanagement (the test protocol was completely fucked). Fukushima required active cooling and could not cool itself using its own power output. And the backup generators were below sea level and the thing was on a fault line. Neither caused major loss of life. Three Mile Island was a scare, and did not cause significant damage or loss of life. Any newly constructed reactor would not have the design flaws of the Soviet RBMK and would be designed to fail-safe.

7952 6y ago
You haven't answered the question though. How do you get the public on board?
- loeg 6y ago
  It'd help to stop repeating mostly false stories (and leading questions) about Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima every time nuclear comes up. But how to persuade the general public that science and statistics matter when even HN is skeptical? You're right, I don't know how to do that.
  - 7952 6y ago
    Science works because you are able to control most of the variables. It simplifies the world into something that can be modelled. Major decisions like energy policy are just more complicated than that. It is hundreds of overlapping considerations that have no good single answer. Yes science still matters, but there are deeper political questions at play. You just need to accept that if you want to build big complex things in the environment. Of course these kind of issues can often be ignored with sufficient political support. Which is exactly what wind and solar have done in Europe. Try using science to prove that a wind turbine isn't ugly. Or that it is worth killing some bird of prey to get clean energy. Try using science to explain why a coal miner should lose their livelihood. Or why you should stop eating so much red meat. It does not work. At the heart of this debate is not scepticism of science, but scepticism of scientists and engineers. Scepticism that they really are as good as they say they are.

Udik 6y ago

Just ask people if they think climate change is an existential threat. If they answer yes (as will most people who are opposed to nuclear energy) then ask them if they think nuclear energy is an existential threat too or just extremely dangerous. If the answer is "just extremely dangerous" then the choice is simple. Actually, I can't understand why all those who are predicting doomsday scenarios because of climate change aren't storming the streets with big pro-nuclear energy signs.

orthecreedence 6y ago
> Actually, I can't understand why all those who are predicting doomsday scenarios because of climate change aren't storming the streets with big pro-nuclear energy signs. Agreed. Without being a primitivist, I don't think you can be both pro-environment and anti-nuclear at this point. Solar and wind just don't have the output to keep up with industry. If we're fine living in mud huts and it taking 6 months to produce a laptop, then fine (and honestly that might be the place we end up in 100 years). But as it is, solar and wind cannot sustain our current economy.

commonturtle 6y ago

This is the key question. Even if nuclear is made ultra safe, a single bad event (which is likely if we build hundreds of thousands of reactors world wide) can raise so much paranoia that future investments in nuclear can be affected. I have no idea how you could solve a problem like this.