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You have a right to be suspicious, but to be fair, this isn't from nuclear energy. It was from tritium weapons research and production. Hanford was one of the s

You have a right to be suspicious, but to be fair, this isn't from nuclear energy. It was from tritium weapons research and production. Hanford was one of the sites of the Manhattan project, in the infancy of nuclear experimentation. The tanks mentioned in this article are containing stuff that, frankly, nobody knows exactly what it is or how to dispose of it. Modern nuclear reactors have been designed and built with your concerns in mind for at least 40 years. All the "modern" operating reactors have no known end of life. They also emit less radiation than a coal plant. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...

jakear 6y ago
> at least 40 years ...seeing as $MY_AGE+40 is smaller than $HUMAN_LIFE_EXPECTANCY, this does exceedingly little to reassure me. Taking my progeny into consideration tips the scales even further away from being reassured. > no known end of life Quite literally all that means is we haven't tested them enough to know when they'll break a priori, and instead we'll just have to deal with the consequences when they inevitably do. > They also emit less radiation than a coal plant. That's not taking into account everything we don't know about how they'll hold up as time ticks on. It's equivalent to me saying "this newfangled browser engine I just made is much safer than chomium, look at how few CVE's it has!"
- eigenrick 6y ago
  Either you're trolling or you've actually just compared the state of software engineering (let's be fair, it's not engineering, but application development) with real engineering disciplines. Unlike software, people actually take engineering projects, especially those that risk public health, very seriously. Of course every aspect of these systems, in whole and in part, have been tested exhaustively. There are a number of things that can be proven about nuclear power plants. Millions of man hours have gone into their research and design. They are rigorously monitored and controlled. Their emissions in every form is highly regulated. If one is within 3 decades of failure, we'd know it. When engineers and scientists say that there isn't a single power plant that is going to fail in the next 40 years. It's not a guess.
  - jakear 6y ago
    What was the point in time between when the existing myriad failing/failed nuclear installations were designed and now that the engineers started taking risk to public health seriously, testing every component exhaustively, and putting lots of hours in to research and design? > If one is within 3 decades of failure, we'd know it > When engineers and scientists say that there isn't a single power plant that is going to fail in the next 40 years. It's not a guess. Why didn't we know it about Fukushima? Things happen beyond the control of man, to make claims like the above is impossible.
    - eigenrick 6y ago
      Fair enough. Fukushima is a good example of a system with multiple, redundant safeguards that were violated pretty much simultaneously. They've ruled that it was preventable, however. It's become a case study and spawned new audit and safeguard procedures. I'm not going to guarantee that nuclear is the safest power source until the end of time. But at present, it is, actually. https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...

jakear 6y ago

> at least 40 years ...seeing as $MY_AGE+40 is smaller than $HUMAN_LIFE_EXPECTANCY, this does exceedingly little to reassure me. Taking my progeny into consideration tips the scales even further away from being reassured. > no known end of life Quite literally all that means is we haven't tested them enough to know when they'll break a priori, and instead we'll just have to deal with the consequences when they inevitably do. > They also emit less radiation than a coal plant. That's not taking into account everything we don't know about how they'll hold up as time ticks on. It's equivalent to me saying "this newfangled browser engine I just made is much safer than chomium, look at how few CVE's it has!"

eigenrick 6y ago
Either you're trolling or you've actually just compared the state of software engineering (let's be fair, it's not engineering, but application development) with real engineering disciplines. Unlike software, people actually take engineering projects, especially those that risk public health, very seriously. Of course every aspect of these systems, in whole and in part, have been tested exhaustively. There are a number of things that can be proven about nuclear power plants. Millions of man hours have gone into their research and design. They are rigorously monitored and controlled. Their emissions in every form is highly regulated. If one is within 3 decades of failure, we'd know it. When engineers and scientists say that there isn't a single power plant that is going to fail in the next 40 years. It's not a guess.
- jakear 6y ago
  What was the point in time between when the existing myriad failing/failed nuclear installations were designed and now that the engineers started taking risk to public health seriously, testing every component exhaustively, and putting lots of hours in to research and design? > If one is within 3 decades of failure, we'd know it > When engineers and scientists say that there isn't a single power plant that is going to fail in the next 40 years. It's not a guess. Why didn't we know it about Fukushima? Things happen beyond the control of man, to make claims like the above is impossible.
  - eigenrick 6y ago
    Fair enough. Fukushima is a good example of a system with multiple, redundant safeguards that were violated pretty much simultaneously. They've ruled that it was preventable, however. It's become a case study and spawned new audit and safeguard procedures. I'm not going to guarantee that nuclear is the safest power source until the end of time. But at present, it is, actually. https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...