22 ms·

Everything around the nuclear disasters has been a human bullshit of a problem, not a technological one. Probably with the exception of Fukushima, where all the

Everything around the nuclear disasters has been a human bullshit of a problem, not a technological one. Probably with the exception of Fukushima, where all the conditions were put into the extreme - killer earthquake and monster tsunami. Being anxious about it is more than justified, especially with idiotic countries in mind. But that doesn't mean we need to abandon it. Nuclear is the future and there is no debate about it - energy density of the fuel is unmatched. It's becoming safer and safer and with the introduction of modular built reactors, the cost and time to market metrics will go down. Whether is fission or fusion - that remains to be seen...

littlestymaar 6y ago
> Everything around the nuclear disasters has been a human bullshit of a problem, not a technological one. Probably with the exception of Fukushima, where all the conditions were put into the extreme - killer earthquake and monster tsunami. In fact, even Fukushima there were human (stupid) mistakes: - the levee was too low, and the regulator told TEPCO they needed to improve it (which they didn't). Interestingly enough, the exact same issue (too small levee, leading to loss of all power and water supply) happened in France in CPNE du Blayais in 1999, and in this case also the regulator told EDF that their levee was too low, with no reaction… - a valve was automatically closed (which is the standard behavior in case of shutdown) but the Japanese operators weren't aware of this behavior, so they believed the valve was still open. When they realized it, it was too late. Opening this valve would have given several hours more of cooling water to the reactor, which could have been enough to save it because help came only a little too late. Main takeaway: humans are going to do stupid things, which in case of nuclear will eventually lead to a disaster every once in a while. The question raised by the article, is “how much of a disaster is it really” and “do we really need to evacuate a entire region when things like this happen”. If the answer is “yes” (which is what's commonly accepted) then nuclear is probably too risky to be reasonable (for instance, if CPNE de Nogent sur Seine suffered a critical failure, Paris and the entire Île-de-France region, which concentrate most of the French economic power, would need to be evacuated). But if the answer is “no”, and the actual risk from contamination (not irradiation actually…) is actually comparable or even lower than regular air pollution or other pollutants, then maybe nuclear is fine, even if we admit that dramatic events will inevitably occur.
- ovi256 6y ago
  >CPNE de Nogent sur Seine suffered a critical failure, Paris and the entire Île-de-France region, which concentrate most of the French economic power, would need to be evacuated Why ? Paris is as far from Nogent NPP (89 km) as Kiev is from Chernobyl NPP, so there's plenty of space to setup an exclusion zone, even in the worst case scenario of an open core meltdown (which are much less probable with Western PWR designs). This is scaremongering.
  - littlestymaar 6y ago
    > Why ? Paris is as far from Nogent NPP (89 km) as Kiev is from Chernobyl NPP, so there's plenty of space to setup an exclusion zone, even in the worst case scenario of an open core meltdown (which are much less probable with Western PWR designs). You stopped halfway through in your reasoning: a PWR reactor is less prone to reactor meltdown than an RBMK one, AND the consequences would be different. Because there's no graphite, there would be no fire, then the radioactive dust cloud would be almost nonexistent. What would happen instead would probably be a Fukushima-like scenario, where tons of contaminated water would end up in the environment. But this time, the environment wouldn't be the gigantic Pacific Ocean, but the Seine river… which crosses Paris and is a major supplier of freshwater for the whole urban area. You really don't want a catastrophic failure at Nogent! (You'd have the same issue with CNPE du Bugey and the city of Lyon btw).
    - ovi256 6y ago
      But this scenario is much easier to handle than an open core meltdown. The Seine supplies drinking water upstream from Nogent. I guess that must be by design when the siting decision was made. So even the need to discharge contamination in the Seine wouldn't matter that much. It would forbid some uses of the Seine for a few months. Containment pools can be readily dug to contain discharge until activity levels decay and to dilute the discharge. These worst case scenarios have already been gamed through during the plant planning process.
      - littlestymaar 6y ago
nerdponx 6y ago
Much of what I've read about Fukushima still implicates "human bullshit", with regard to the reactor design, underestimating the maximum tsunami size that should be accounted for, and the physical layout of the facility (particularly the location of the backup generators).
matthewmacleod 6y ago
Problem is that you don’t get to opt out of the “human bullshit”. Nuclear power comes with a massive and unavoidable cost from these matters.
- pilsetnieks 6y ago
  Does it, though? A large portion can definitely be avoided with design and technology. Chernobyl happened because it was a positive feedback loop, in the West it was an obsolete design even before it was built. And Fukushima was quite literally acts of god (in the actuarial sense.)
  - imtringued 6y ago
    It doesn't matter if you have a new design if you don't deploy it. The Fukushima plant was older than the Chernobyl plant. One could have simply decided to replace it with a newer design. In hindsight if Japan's government didn't have to pay for the Fukushima cleanup they could have done more sensible things, like update the entire nuclear fleet. It certainly would have been cheaper to tear all nuclear plants in Japan down and build new ones when you look at the cost overruns at Fukushima.
  - rjkennedy98 6y ago
    As an equal analogy - why can't we design our way out of governments having lots of "human bullshit" problems? If you can answer that question, you solve a much bigger problem than energy.
  - matthewmacleod 6y ago
    Yes, it does. Humans lie and cheat and steal and misrepresent. Contractors use inappropriate materials or cut corners. Regulators demand unreasonable operational constraints because of political pressure. Insurers demand unaffordable costs. Protestors fight construction because of unfounded fears. Political stasis prevents sensible waste management strategies. And so on. I absolutely think it would be possible to build a safe future on nuclear power - in an ideal world. But the world is very very far from ideal; the impression I get is that that effort which would be required to actually deliver a modern nuclear strategy is unattainable.
xigency 6y ago
In fact, the failures at Fukushima were definitely human caused although it was indeed an extreme natural disaster as well. Being anxious based on the past failures is not totally justified as the environmental cost and dangers from pollution are much, much greater for existing non-renewable energy sources than nuclear even factoring in Chernobyl, Fukushima, etc. The number of fatalities and injuries from those versus their power output makes them safer than coal. The real problem is that the public conscious is turned against nuclear because of its association with weapons and the decades that environmentalist groups have spent protesting against it, ironically.
hrktb 6y ago
I can’t think of a single instance of a technology where we thought that failure wasn’t an option, were supposed to put everything behind it to succeed and had a 100% clear success. Dams fail. Rockets fail. Medical devices fail. Do you see any that doesn’t fail, whatever the cause is ? It’s natural to assume power plant at some point will fail. If we’re fine losing a gigantic living area for half a century each time a plant fails, perhaps you are right. But looking at Fukushima that doesn’t seem like a tradeoff people are fine with.
- jojobas 6y ago
  Planning for failure is a core activity in nuclear plant design. Modern plants could sustain pretty much any failure and no living area would be lost.
  - DoctorOetker 6y ago
    including an airliner flying into surface storage next to the plant?
    - jojobas 6y ago
      I would not be surprised. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY446h4pZdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY446h4pZdc
      - DoctorOetker 6y ago
        do you have a title so I can check it through DDG? I refuse to click the consent pop-ip on YT... EDIT: watched. An aeroplane is not a train.
        DoctorOetker 6y ago
        And a dry storage cask is not a transportation cask
        jojobas 6y ago
jbverschoor 6y ago
It' because we can't see it. It's also unknown to most what reactors actually do. They're basically steam reactors.
Gibbon1 6y ago
What I think? I think for countries like Elbonia you can say 'here are your solar panels and batteries, have a nice day'. Can't do that with a nuke plant. Notable I'm starting to see residential HVAC equipment and EV battery chargers that tie directly to solar panels.
- sto_hristo 6y ago
  (side note: There are portable, assembled small nuclear reactors you can install in remote areas in months time and serve the needs of a small enterprise.) You have a good point. If you're a small country, like the size of Luxembourg, it doesn't make sense to open a nuclear power plant - you can import and/or go the renewable route. For industrial powerhouses and large civilizations? Different story.
crispyporkbites 6y ago
Nuclear is the future indeed, the fusion reactor in the sky supplies all the energy we’ll ever need.
- sto_hristo 6y ago
  Problem with that is you only get a fraction of that output, more precisely, it diminishes with the power of 2 for every unit of distance between here and there. Wouldn't it be great if humanity put its mind and effort into reliably recreating it right here in our own backyard? It's not easy, it's a process, sacrifices (most of which needless and avoidable) have been made... but in the long run, it will net us immeasurably much more than spraying the planet with large fans and solar panels.
mrtksn 6y ago
Soviets were corrupt, Japanese were [not familiar with the explanation]. What would be the excuse for the next disaster? What if there are no selfless heroes around next time? The problem with the current nuclear technology is that one disaster is way too many. The power plants need to fail more gracefully to have the support of the people that are less fascinated by the tech. When the tsunami hits or experiment goes wrong you should be able the have a huge monetary loss and forget about what happened in a week. Not heroes sacrificing their lives to save the humanity and sarcophagus build with international collaboration. Not a land that is no-go zone for who knows how long. Yes, nuclear power is fascinating and it’s very neat when it works but it’s too much of a commitment for many people. And the death per kwh stats are ridiculous. Deaths of terrorist are way lower than most killers. Deaths due to mafia are very low compared to fatty cheese. Deaths due to serial killers are very low compared to kitchen accidents.
- corty 6y ago
  Fukushima and Czernobyl are reactor types that lack the features to fail gracefully. If you want to see an accident in a reactor that does, read about TMI. Newer reactors like EPRs are even more graceful when failing.
  - mrtksn 6y ago
    And what would be the excuse when the new reactors fail disastrously? None of the failed ones were considered dangerous before they fail, they were all supposed to be impossible to cause a disaster due to redundancies, passive and active safety mechanisms. They were all supposed to be built perfectly and the people who operate them were supposed to know what they are doing. Yet, we have Chernobyl and Fukushima. What happens when the next time 20 million people need to be evacuated? Europe fell to it's knees when 1 million refugees moved, Americans choose their president on premise to build a wall to stop Mexicans. The risk is simply too great just to have a neat machine running that produces the same stuff that can be produced with other machines.
    - corty 6y ago
jojobas 6y ago
Fukushima was largely a human bullshit problem too.
- justatdotin 6y ago
  as was the previous reactor disaster; as will be the next one.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Future humans will definitely use it, but it is too ahead of its time. You need a baseline level of average intelligence in the world for it to be widely adopted, we still have a few generations to go.
phendrenad2 6y ago
I read somewhere that Fukushima's natural disaster wad a "once in 50-years event" which is like saying it's not your fault if you run a particular stop sign every day for 20 years because "the was only a 1% chance of someone coming the other way"
- AngryData 6y ago
  They could have stopped running the stop sign at any point because they knew it was a problem for decades. They just decided it was too inconvenient to stop despite the constant protests of the passengers.
  - GekkePrutser 6y ago
    How confident are you to eliminate corruption worldwide? It's human nature, as long as that's the case accidents will happen due to stupidity. No matter how much oversight.
redis_mlc 6y ago
> Probably with the exception of Fukushima, where all the conditions were put into the extreme - killer earthquake and monster tsunami. Stop being an apologist for Fukushima. It was entirely preventable: 1) Any SV Data Center auditor would have asked, "Explain the backup generators, fuel systems and resupply to me.", then immediately busted the audit for Fukushima. Would have cost less than $20,000. So we know that "nuclear regulators" are complete idiots. 2) It was built on a known-tsunami coastline with warning markers on the beaches built after the previous tsunamis. But there's no replacement for common sense.
AngryData 6y ago
Even Fukushima was a human problem, they had the warnings, the designs, the technology, the reviews, and the equipment to prevent a meltdown. But newer safety features were never implemented due to political problems and concerns. They knew Tsunamis bigger than the plant was designed for could happen, they knew earthquakes bigger than the plant could handle could happen, they had the technology and knowledge to reduce or eliminate those problems so it wouldn't melt down, they just didn't bother doing any of the work to accomplish it.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  And there is no reason to think anybody else would bother, either.
pfdietz 6y ago
> Nuclear is the future and there is no debate about it - energy density of the fuel is unmatched. This is a non sequitur. The conclusion does not follow from the premise.

littlestymaar 6y ago

> Everything around the nuclear disasters has been a human bullshit of a problem, not a technological one. Probably with the exception of Fukushima, where all the conditions were put into the extreme - killer earthquake and monster tsunami. In fact, even Fukushima there were human (stupid) mistakes: - the levee was too low, and the regulator told TEPCO they needed to improve it (which they didn't). Interestingly enough, the exact same issue (too small levee, leading to loss of all power and water supply) happened in France in CPNE du Blayais in 1999, and in this case also the regulator told EDF that their levee was too low, with no reaction… - a valve was automatically closed (which is the standard behavior in case of shutdown) but the Japanese operators weren't aware of this behavior, so they believed the valve was still open. When they realized it, it was too late. Opening this valve would have given several hours more of cooling water to the reactor, which could have been enough to save it because help came only a little too late. Main takeaway: humans are going to do stupid things, which in case of nuclear will eventually lead to a disaster every once in a while. The question raised by the article, is “how much of a disaster is it really” and “do we really need to evacuate a entire region when things like this happen”. If the answer is “yes” (which is what's commonly accepted) then nuclear is probably too risky to be reasonable (for instance, if CPNE de Nogent sur Seine suffered a critical failure, Paris and the entire Île-de-France region, which concentrate most of the French economic power, would need to be evacuated). But if the answer is “no”, and the actual risk from contamination (not irradiation actually…) is actually comparable or even lower than regular air pollution or other pollutants, then maybe nuclear is fine, even if we admit that dramatic events will inevitably occur.

ovi256 6y ago
>CPNE de Nogent sur Seine suffered a critical failure, Paris and the entire Île-de-France region, which concentrate most of the French economic power, would need to be evacuated Why ? Paris is as far from Nogent NPP (89 km) as Kiev is from Chernobyl NPP, so there's plenty of space to setup an exclusion zone, even in the worst case scenario of an open core meltdown (which are much less probable with Western PWR designs). This is scaremongering.
- littlestymaar 6y ago
  > Why ? Paris is as far from Nogent NPP (89 km) as Kiev is from Chernobyl NPP, so there's plenty of space to setup an exclusion zone, even in the worst case scenario of an open core meltdown (which are much less probable with Western PWR designs). You stopped halfway through in your reasoning: a PWR reactor is less prone to reactor meltdown than an RBMK one, AND the consequences would be different. Because there's no graphite, there would be no fire, then the radioactive dust cloud would be almost nonexistent. What would happen instead would probably be a Fukushima-like scenario, where tons of contaminated water would end up in the environment. But this time, the environment wouldn't be the gigantic Pacific Ocean, but the Seine river… which crosses Paris and is a major supplier of freshwater for the whole urban area. You really don't want a catastrophic failure at Nogent! (You'd have the same issue with CNPE du Bugey and the city of Lyon btw).
  - ovi256 6y ago
    But this scenario is much easier to handle than an open core meltdown. The Seine supplies drinking water upstream from Nogent. I guess that must be by design when the siting decision was made. So even the need to discharge contamination in the Seine wouldn't matter that much. It would forbid some uses of the Seine for a few months. Containment pools can be readily dug to contain discharge until activity levels decay and to dilute the discharge. These worst case scenarios have already been gamed through during the plant planning process.
    - littlestymaar 6y ago

nerdponx 6y ago

Much of what I've read about Fukushima still implicates "human bullshit", with regard to the reactor design, underestimating the maximum tsunami size that should be accounted for, and the physical layout of the facility (particularly the location of the backup generators).

matthewmacleod 6y ago

Problem is that you don’t get to opt out of the “human bullshit”. Nuclear power comes with a massive and unavoidable cost from these matters.

pilsetnieks 6y ago
Does it, though? A large portion can definitely be avoided with design and technology. Chernobyl happened because it was a positive feedback loop, in the West it was an obsolete design even before it was built. And Fukushima was quite literally acts of god (in the actuarial sense.)
- imtringued 6y ago
  It doesn't matter if you have a new design if you don't deploy it. The Fukushima plant was older than the Chernobyl plant. One could have simply decided to replace it with a newer design. In hindsight if Japan's government didn't have to pay for the Fukushima cleanup they could have done more sensible things, like update the entire nuclear fleet. It certainly would have been cheaper to tear all nuclear plants in Japan down and build new ones when you look at the cost overruns at Fukushima.
- rjkennedy98 6y ago
  As an equal analogy - why can't we design our way out of governments having lots of "human bullshit" problems? If you can answer that question, you solve a much bigger problem than energy.
- matthewmacleod 6y ago
  Yes, it does. Humans lie and cheat and steal and misrepresent. Contractors use inappropriate materials or cut corners. Regulators demand unreasonable operational constraints because of political pressure. Insurers demand unaffordable costs. Protestors fight construction because of unfounded fears. Political stasis prevents sensible waste management strategies. And so on. I absolutely think it would be possible to build a safe future on nuclear power - in an ideal world. But the world is very very far from ideal; the impression I get is that that effort which would be required to actually deliver a modern nuclear strategy is unattainable.

xigency 6y ago

In fact, the failures at Fukushima were definitely human caused although it was indeed an extreme natural disaster as well. Being anxious based on the past failures is not totally justified as the environmental cost and dangers from pollution are much, much greater for existing non-renewable energy sources than nuclear even factoring in Chernobyl, Fukushima, etc. The number of fatalities and injuries from those versus their power output makes them safer than coal. The real problem is that the public conscious is turned against nuclear because of its association with weapons and the decades that environmentalist groups have spent protesting against it, ironically.

hrktb 6y ago

I can’t think of a single instance of a technology where we thought that failure wasn’t an option, were supposed to put everything behind it to succeed and had a 100% clear success. Dams fail. Rockets fail. Medical devices fail. Do you see any that doesn’t fail, whatever the cause is ? It’s natural to assume power plant at some point will fail. If we’re fine losing a gigantic living area for half a century each time a plant fails, perhaps you are right. But looking at Fukushima that doesn’t seem like a tradeoff people are fine with.

jojobas 6y ago
Planning for failure is a core activity in nuclear plant design. Modern plants could sustain pretty much any failure and no living area would be lost.
- DoctorOetker 6y ago
  including an airliner flying into surface storage next to the plant?
  - jojobas 6y ago
    I would not be surprised. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY446h4pZdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY446h4pZdc
    - DoctorOetker 6y ago
      do you have a title so I can check it through DDG? I refuse to click the consent pop-ip on YT... EDIT: watched. An aeroplane is not a train.
      - DoctorOetker 6y ago
        And a dry storage cask is not a transportation cask
      - jojobas 6y ago

jbverschoor 6y ago

It' because we can't see it. It's also unknown to most what reactors actually do. They're basically steam reactors.

Gibbon1 6y ago

What I think? I think for countries like Elbonia you can say 'here are your solar panels and batteries, have a nice day'. Can't do that with a nuke plant. Notable I'm starting to see residential HVAC equipment and EV battery chargers that tie directly to solar panels.

sto_hristo 6y ago
(side note: There are portable, assembled small nuclear reactors you can install in remote areas in months time and serve the needs of a small enterprise.) You have a good point. If you're a small country, like the size of Luxembourg, it doesn't make sense to open a nuclear power plant - you can import and/or go the renewable route. For industrial powerhouses and large civilizations? Different story.

crispyporkbites 6y ago

Nuclear is the future indeed, the fusion reactor in the sky supplies all the energy we’ll ever need.

sto_hristo 6y ago
Problem with that is you only get a fraction of that output, more precisely, it diminishes with the power of 2 for every unit of distance between here and there. Wouldn't it be great if humanity put its mind and effort into reliably recreating it right here in our own backyard? It's not easy, it's a process, sacrifices (most of which needless and avoidable) have been made... but in the long run, it will net us immeasurably much more than spraying the planet with large fans and solar panels.

mrtksn 6y ago

Soviets were corrupt, Japanese were [not familiar with the explanation]. What would be the excuse for the next disaster? What if there are no selfless heroes around next time? The problem with the current nuclear technology is that one disaster is way too many. The power plants need to fail more gracefully to have the support of the people that are less fascinated by the tech. When the tsunami hits or experiment goes wrong you should be able the have a huge monetary loss and forget about what happened in a week. Not heroes sacrificing their lives to save the humanity and sarcophagus build with international collaboration. Not a land that is no-go zone for who knows how long. Yes, nuclear power is fascinating and it’s very neat when it works but it’s too much of a commitment for many people. And the death per kwh stats are ridiculous. Deaths of terrorist are way lower than most killers. Deaths due to mafia are very low compared to fatty cheese. Deaths due to serial killers are very low compared to kitchen accidents.

corty 6y ago
Fukushima and Czernobyl are reactor types that lack the features to fail gracefully. If you want to see an accident in a reactor that does, read about TMI. Newer reactors like EPRs are even more graceful when failing.
- mrtksn 6y ago
  And what would be the excuse when the new reactors fail disastrously? None of the failed ones were considered dangerous before they fail, they were all supposed to be impossible to cause a disaster due to redundancies, passive and active safety mechanisms. They were all supposed to be built perfectly and the people who operate them were supposed to know what they are doing. Yet, we have Chernobyl and Fukushima. What happens when the next time 20 million people need to be evacuated? Europe fell to it's knees when 1 million refugees moved, Americans choose their president on premise to build a wall to stop Mexicans. The risk is simply too great just to have a neat machine running that produces the same stuff that can be produced with other machines.
  - corty 6y ago

jojobas 6y ago

Fukushima was largely a human bullshit problem too.

justatdotin 6y ago
as was the previous reactor disaster; as will be the next one.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Future humans will definitely use it, but it is too ahead of its time. You need a baseline level of average intelligence in the world for it to be widely adopted, we still have a few generations to go.

phendrenad2 6y ago

I read somewhere that Fukushima's natural disaster wad a "once in 50-years event" which is like saying it's not your fault if you run a particular stop sign every day for 20 years because "the was only a 1% chance of someone coming the other way"

AngryData 6y ago
They could have stopped running the stop sign at any point because they knew it was a problem for decades. They just decided it was too inconvenient to stop despite the constant protests of the passengers.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  How confident are you to eliminate corruption worldwide? It's human nature, as long as that's the case accidents will happen due to stupidity. No matter how much oversight.

redis_mlc 6y ago

> Probably with the exception of Fukushima, where all the conditions were put into the extreme - killer earthquake and monster tsunami. Stop being an apologist for Fukushima. It was entirely preventable: 1) Any SV Data Center auditor would have asked, "Explain the backup generators, fuel systems and resupply to me.", then immediately busted the audit for Fukushima. Would have cost less than $20,000. So we know that "nuclear regulators" are complete idiots. 2) It was built on a known-tsunami coastline with warning markers on the beaches built after the previous tsunamis. But there's no replacement for common sense.

AngryData 6y ago

Even Fukushima was a human problem, they had the warnings, the designs, the technology, the reviews, and the equipment to prevent a meltdown. But newer safety features were never implemented due to political problems and concerns. They knew Tsunamis bigger than the plant was designed for could happen, they knew earthquakes bigger than the plant could handle could happen, they had the technology and knowledge to reduce or eliminate those problems so it wouldn't melt down, they just didn't bother doing any of the work to accomplish it.

ncmncm 6y ago
And there is no reason to think anybody else would bother, either.

pfdietz 6y ago

> Nuclear is the future and there is no debate about it - energy density of the fuel is unmatched. This is a non sequitur. The conclusion does not follow from the premise.