5 ms·

> By only looking for safety of the design, Westinghouse was able to submit designs that were safe, but not particularly buildable. Because the commission is b

by R0b0t1 6y ago

> By only looking for safety of the design, Westinghouse was able to submit designs that were safe, but not particularly buildable. Because the commission is biased towards safety above all else. They need to be more realistic and not cave in to fearmongering. The design needs to be safe, but against a realistic threat model. The designs also need to be assembly line and not so highly customized. French style reactor designs are good for this reason. Part that holds the reactor? Fine, evaluate for weather and calamity resistance and build per location. The reactor? Hope you like black.

epistasis 6y ago
What is an example of this fearmongering, and what expense did it cause?
- agloeregrets 6y ago
  From the outside, you have large-scale accidents that caused a lot of fear that killed the drive for us. Notably Three Mile Island in the US and the effects of seeing what happened in Chernobyl that was drummed up by the US government to show failures by the Soviets (even though the Soviet reactor design was far more dangerous). Additionally, I live near a plant and they hold extreme safety training on iodine distribution and such to school children that makes kids fear the plant.
  - epistasis 6y ago
    No denying that there's been fearmongering in general. But I'm still asking for an example of what regulation on the construction of nuclear plants should be changed.
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    What killed the drive for nuclear in the 1970s in the US was more that the costs came in very high, that electric power demand growth suddenly moderated, and that the grid was opened to external non-utility competition by PURPA in 1978 (four months before TMI).
- EricE 6y ago
  How about starting with mountainous environmental impact reports that no one reads? Theres lots of room for maintaining effective oversight while making the overall processes more efficient. The problem is the current processes were designed to be onerous due to those lobbying against nuclear power. Also with new concepts like micro reactors or reviving long abandoned technology like liquid thorium reactors that would burn what we stupidly label “waste” and if the active systems are interrupted coast to a stop on their own instead of running away like our fast breeder water based designs a lot of the existing regulations and requirements are suddenly moot. Most importantly Nuclear is the only “clean” technology that is predictable and controllable. Until you have a way to reliably meet base load requirements, fossil fuel generation is going to continue. So if you really do think that climate change represents impending doom, resisting nuclear power is pretty dumb. It’s not perfect - but there isn’t any technology that is perfect or without some risk. Pretending nuclear is the only energy technology with serious issues is also dumb. 50 years of people painting nuclear as the boogie man hasn’t helped either. If you strongest arguments are emotionally based those aren’t very good arguments at all.
hanniabu 6y ago
This isn't fearmongering: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26348520 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26348520
baix777 6y ago
I don't see any evidence humans are smart enough to operate nuclear power safely. There are too many examples of humans not fully understanding nuclear, or just being stupid with nuclear. For example, building a nuclear power plant near an earthquake fault line in CA, or where tsunamis occur in Japan. We can't get the basics of safety right here.
- jtolmar 6y ago
  Even with all the disasters included, nuclear power is safer than almost all other kinds (the exception being very large hydro plants), per unit energy.
  - quacker 6y ago
    Interesting. I know nuclear power is far safer than it's general reputation. Is nuclear really safer than solar? This[1] has some data and estimations for death rates measured based on deaths from accidents and air pollution per terawatt-hour (TWh), which suggests nuclear has 0.07 deaths per TWh, which is marginally higher than wind (0.04), hydro (0.02), and solar (0.02). So, it's very close! 1. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
  - LorenPechtel 6y ago
    That's bad data. Nuke is getting blamed for the Fukushima deaths that were due to the evacuation--neglecting the fact that the safest option was to stay put. If you replace the evacuation deaths (IIRC ~500) with the stay-put deaths (most likely zero) you about halve the nuke death rate. The larger deployment of utility-scale solar does seem to have reduced it's death rate. (Many of the solar deaths are from falling off the roof during installation or maintenance. Utility-scale solar is normally on the ground and with better safety measures.)
    - jtolmar 6y ago
      > Nuke is getting blamed for the Fukushima deaths that were due to the evacuation I think this is fair. /All/ deaths from nuclear and renewable power are due to accidents and bad decisions. Accidents and bad decisions aren't going to go away. It takes a monumentally boneheaded decision to make a nuclear power plant dangerous, but apparently the rate of monumentally boneheaded decisions is one per thirty years at our current level of nuclear power usage.

by R0b0t1 6y ago

epistasis 6y ago

What is an example of this fearmongering, and what expense did it cause?

agloeregrets 6y ago
From the outside, you have large-scale accidents that caused a lot of fear that killed the drive for us. Notably Three Mile Island in the US and the effects of seeing what happened in Chernobyl that was drummed up by the US government to show failures by the Soviets (even though the Soviet reactor design was far more dangerous). Additionally, I live near a plant and they hold extreme safety training on iodine distribution and such to school children that makes kids fear the plant.
- epistasis 6y ago
  No denying that there's been fearmongering in general. But I'm still asking for an example of what regulation on the construction of nuclear plants should be changed.
- pfdietz 6y ago
  What killed the drive for nuclear in the 1970s in the US was more that the costs came in very high, that electric power demand growth suddenly moderated, and that the grid was opened to external non-utility competition by PURPA in 1978 (four months before TMI).
EricE 6y ago
How about starting with mountainous environmental impact reports that no one reads? Theres lots of room for maintaining effective oversight while making the overall processes more efficient. The problem is the current processes were designed to be onerous due to those lobbying against nuclear power. Also with new concepts like micro reactors or reviving long abandoned technology like liquid thorium reactors that would burn what we stupidly label “waste” and if the active systems are interrupted coast to a stop on their own instead of running away like our fast breeder water based designs a lot of the existing regulations and requirements are suddenly moot. Most importantly Nuclear is the only “clean” technology that is predictable and controllable. Until you have a way to reliably meet base load requirements, fossil fuel generation is going to continue. So if you really do think that climate change represents impending doom, resisting nuclear power is pretty dumb. It’s not perfect - but there isn’t any technology that is perfect or without some risk. Pretending nuclear is the only energy technology with serious issues is also dumb. 50 years of people painting nuclear as the boogie man hasn’t helped either. If you strongest arguments are emotionally based those aren’t very good arguments at all.

hanniabu 6y ago

This isn't fearmongering: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26348520 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26348520

baix777 6y ago

I don't see any evidence humans are smart enough to operate nuclear power safely. There are too many examples of humans not fully understanding nuclear, or just being stupid with nuclear. For example, building a nuclear power plant near an earthquake fault line in CA, or where tsunamis occur in Japan. We can't get the basics of safety right here.

jtolmar 6y ago
Even with all the disasters included, nuclear power is safer than almost all other kinds (the exception being very large hydro plants), per unit energy.
- quacker 6y ago
  Interesting. I know nuclear power is far safer than it's general reputation. Is nuclear really safer than solar? This[1] has some data and estimations for death rates measured based on deaths from accidents and air pollution per terawatt-hour (TWh), which suggests nuclear has 0.07 deaths per TWh, which is marginally higher than wind (0.04), hydro (0.02), and solar (0.02). So, it's very close! 1. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
- LorenPechtel 6y ago
  That's bad data. Nuke is getting blamed for the Fukushima deaths that were due to the evacuation--neglecting the fact that the safest option was to stay put. If you replace the evacuation deaths (IIRC ~500) with the stay-put deaths (most likely zero) you about halve the nuke death rate. The larger deployment of utility-scale solar does seem to have reduced it's death rate. (Many of the solar deaths are from falling off the roof during installation or maintenance. Utility-scale solar is normally on the ground and with better safety measures.)
  - jtolmar 6y ago
    > Nuke is getting blamed for the Fukushima deaths that were due to the evacuation I think this is fair. /All/ deaths from nuclear and renewable power are due to accidents and bad decisions. Accidents and bad decisions aren't going to go away. It takes a monumentally boneheaded decision to make a nuclear power plant dangerous, but apparently the rate of monumentally boneheaded decisions is one per thirty years at our current level of nuclear power usage.